Taxpayers may soon be filling the funding gaps in Oregon’s psilocybin system
Oregon Health Authority (OHA) has asked for $6.6 million to fill the program’s budget gap for the fiscal biennium starting July 1 [2023], according to a 13-page “policy option package,” or POP, that’s now sitting in the Legislature… Measure 109… to make the psilocybin program pay for itself… there is no hard and fast date for when that has to happen, says Angela Allbee…
OHA’s request for general fund dollars galls Noah Heller because, if granted, he says the money would go to subsidizing a regulatory framework that allows psilocybin experiences that, so far, only the wealthy can afford. “This is all about health equity, but state money is going to subsidize $15,000 service centers,” Heller says. “And those probably serve wealthy people from out of state.” …James Hin [religious with members] has opened the PSILO Temple, a church in Eugene, Oregon, where psilocybin is the sacrament for the dozens of congregants… church is protected by both the First Amendment and the Religious Freedoms Restoration Act of 1993, passed by Congress… Hin says he operates openly and makes psilocybin available at almost no cost because the world needs the compound to survive… where psilocybin is the sacrament for the dozens of congregants…
Original Article (Willamette Week):
Taxpayers may soon be filling the funding gaps in Oregon’s psilocybin system & Oregon’s appetite for psilocybin is being fed outside the law in the mushroom underground
Artwork Fair Use: Public Domain
