Welcome back to The Drop In, DoubleBlind’s newsletter serving up news, culture, and independent journalism about psychedelics straight to your inbox.

Today’s lead story is about Oregon’s move to consolidate its medical cannabis and its psilocybin services program. It’s happening amid financial concerns and proposing to increase licensing fees for psilocybin service centers, manufacturers, and facilitators. You can an official comment from Oregon Health Authority to DoubleBlind and our analysis below.

If you keep scrolling you’ll find stories to read about the similarities between raves and ceremonies, the impact of psychedelics on authoritarian attitudes, what psychedelic integration actually is, and a lot more.

PS- Also, if you’re going to be in Portland this week, join us in the City of Roses on July 10 for a magical evening of virtuosic multidimensional music and a conversation on psychedelia with DB co-founder Shelby Hartman and journalist Caitlin Donohue at The Lantern. See you there? ☺️
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Happy World Cup 🇺🇸🏆,
Mary Carreón
Editor-in-Chief

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The two programs are expected to function as a consolidated section by September 1, 2026, a cost-cutting move that arrives alongside a proposed doubling of licensing fees.

Oregon’s psilocybin and medical cannabis programs are merging into a single regulatory section, the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) confirmed to DoubleBlind on July 3. The decision comes as both programs contend with budget shortfalls that have pushed the OHA to look for new opportunities to cut costs and increase revenue.

 "Both Oregon Psilocybin Services (OPS) and the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program (OMMP) are experiencing budget shortfalls," a spokesperson for OHA's Public Health Division tells DoubleBlind in an email. "After taking steps to reduce costs (e.g., not filling vacant positions, reducing non-personnel costs), the next step in our resource-limited environment is to look for other impactful ways to increase efficiency and cost-effectiveness. To that end, OPS and OMMP will come together to form one section, the Oregon Psilocybin and Medical Cannabis Section (PMCS)."

The consolidation, first reported by Psychedelic Alpha on X, will gradually roll out over the summer and is slated to have a September 1 completion date. Angie Allbee, the current OPS manager, will lead the new section, and Megan Lockwood, who manages OMMP, will now head the Health Licensing Office. “Angie and Megan will be working closely to ensure a supportive transition for staff with a focus on continuity and stability for partners," OHA’s spokesperson tells DoubleBlind.

This merger arrives as OPS faces other financial pressures. As of July 1, the OHA has proposed doubling the program’s licensing fees, according to the Portland Business Journal. The proposal would increase the annual fee for service centers, manufacturers, and testing labs from $10,000 to $20,000, and facilitator fees would rise from $2,000 to $4,000. It would go into effect January 1, 2027, if adopted.

When voters approved legally guided psilocybin sessions via Measure 109 in 2020, the program was built to sustain itself on licensing fees rather than tax dollars. It has not achieved that thus far.

Operators warn the licensing fee increases could break an already fragile business and burgeoning industry. "If you try to charge $20,000 (for a service center license, up from $10,000 per annum) next year, I'm gonna have to go to another state," one service center operator told Lucid News. “The way the law is written, long-term, is what is going to constrain my success as an entrepreneur.”

It’s not just business owners who would take on the burden of increased licensing fees. Patients hoping to undergo supported psilocybin use legally, either with a therapist or other type of facilitator, will also see a price hike for treatment. Currently, psilocybin sessions in Oregon cost roughly between $500 for guided microdose experiences and $3,500 for higher-dose guided sessions, according to prior reporting by DoubleBlind. If licensing fees increase, an already pricey experience will move further out of reach, pushing people to the underground market for both mushrooms and unlicensed guides. Most psilocybin use and sourcing already exists outside of the clinical, therapy context but it still comes with risks. Plus, patients being forced to turn to the underground because a legal framework has made a product or service too expensive is a public health risk. Not to mention it mirrors one of the main issues of the American health insurance system.

The OPS and OMMP’s consolidation and the OPS licensing fee increases fit into a broader, turbulent context for Oregon drug policy. In 2020, voters passed Measure 109 alongside Measure 110, the latter decriminalized personal possession of all drugs. But without addressing the housing issue, increasing drug and mental health treatment programs, and other support infrastructure to hold up such an experiment, public drug use surged and lawmakers repealed Measure 110’s decriminalization in 2024 through House Bill 4002. It reinstated criminal penalties for personal possession while leaving the psilocybin therapy program intact. In effect, the laws allow access for people who can pay and criminal exposure for everyone else.

Reform hasn't stalled entirely, however. On July 2, a group of Portland city councilors introduced legislation that would make low-level psychedelic offenses the city’s lowest enforcement priority and create an expert commission to guide future policy, according to KATU 2 ABC News. However, psilocybin use and possession would remain illegal outside of licensed service centers in the state, and remain fully illegal under federal law.

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