NJ becomes latest state to legalize medical ‘Magic Mushroom’ therapy
The law allows medical professionals to use the hallucinogenic compound found in some mushrooms to treat mental health disorders.
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Former Gov. Phil Murphy signed a new law Tuesday legalizing the use of psilocybin, commonly known as magic mushrooms, as a medical treatment.
State Sen. Nicholas Scutari (NJ-22), the president of the New Jersey Senate, sponsored the now-law in the Legislature.
He described it to News 12 as a "psilocybin behavioral health assessment and therapy pilot program...to study the efficacy of the psilocybin product."
The law permits designated medical professionals in New Jersey to use the hallucinogenic compound found in some mushrooms as a treatment for mental health conditions.
The program will be geared toward people with conditions like PTSD or drug-resistant depression.
Scutari said the law aims to "fill that gap for what normal drugs cannot and have not been able to solve for folks."
Jeff Swanson, a retired Navy SEAL, said he has benefited from psilocybin therapy.
"Losing brothers, losing very close friends. When you do it for 10 years, those numbers mount up," he said. "It'll be four years this coming Easter, I will not have had a sip of alcohol, and that is due in large part to the treatment I received through that psychedelic-assisted therapy."
Despite New Jersey's new law, psilocybin has not yet been approved by the Federal Drug Administration for medical use and is still considered a Schedule I controlled substance.
"If we're going to wait for psilocybin…to be de-scheduled, we're never going to get anywhere. But having this in a controlled setting, not recreational use, where it can be studied in a medical way, is really the best way to go,” Scutari said.
The treatment will be administered at three hospitals in New Jersey that are yet to be chosen in the northern, central and southern parts of the state.
"If I can hopefully come out of it a little bit better than before after going through what I've been through, maybe it will inspire others to heal themselves," Swanson said.
