Ingesting “magic mushrooms” in Colorado requires a hookup — a friend who grows them and is willing to share, or a paid, underground guide who will not only supply the illegal shrooms but help process whatever enlightenment they might elicit.

For decades, eating psychedelic mushrooms has been a clandestine activity, like using marijuana before it was legalized.

Proposition 122, on the November ballot, would make psychedelic mushrooms legal in Colorado and allow licensed “healing centers” to give clients mushrooms in a supervised setting, broadening access to what is considered a breakthrough treatment for anxiety and depression. The measure provides the potential for facilities to expand to three plant-based psychedelics in 2026. Those are ibogaine, from the root bark of an iboga tree; mescaline, which is from cacti; and dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, a natural compound found in plants and animals.

The measure has two main camps of opponents, one expected and the other, not so much. The first are those concerned about increased drug activity among teens and young adults. The second are a faction of psychedelic trip guides now working underground. 

Denver said yes to psychedelic mushrooms three years ago, not exactly legalizing them, but making possession low priority for law enforcement. The statewide ballot measure would allow people to grow and share psychedelic mushrooms, as well as create state-regulated centers where people could make appointments to consume psilocybin, the hallucination-inducing compound derived from psychedelic mushrooms. No hookup required.

Read more on ColoradoSun.com.