Is Psilocybin Legal in Colorado? Personal Use and Healing Centers

Is psilocybin legal in Colorado?

Psilocybin is legal in Colorado for adults 21 and older to possess, share and grow for personal use without payment, but it is not legal to sell outside the licensed system.

Colorado voters approved Proposition 122 on 2022-11-08. The Colorado Natural Medicine Code now sits in state statute, and the personal-use rule is in C.R.S. 18-18-434. This page uses the statute text as published through Fall 2025 and the 2026 bill summaries from the General Assembly. For how this differs from other states, see decriminalization vs legalization. The answer is dated 2026-10-27.

Three limits matter. Federal law still lists psilocybin as Schedule I. State law bars sales and public use, and gives no defense to impaired driving. People under 21 can be fined.

What can adults do with psilocybin in Colorado? An act-by-act table

Colorado law treats each act separately, so the answer for possessing differs from the answer for selling or driving.

Act	Colorado state law	Where it comes from
Possess or consume (age 21+)	Lawful for personal use, without payment	C.R.S. 18-18-434(5)(a)
Share with another adult 21+	Lawful without payment, in the context of counseling, spiritual guidance, community-based use or supported use	434(5)(a) and the definition of “personal use” in 434(12)(d)
Grow	Lawful for personal use on private property, up to a cumulative 12 by 12 feet; growing beyond the cap, or outside an enclosed, locked space, is a drug petty offense with a fine up to $1,000	434(3)
Sell, or possess to sell	Not lawful outside the licensed system	434(5)(c)(II), 44-50-102(3)
Give to someone under 21	Not lawful	434(5)(c)(I)
Use or display in public	Drug petty offense: fine up to $100 and up to 24 hours of public service	434(2)
Possess or consume under 21	Drug petty offense. First conviction: fine up to $100 or up to 4 hours of education or counseling. Second or later conviction: adds up to 24 hours of public service	434(1)
Drive or operate machinery after use	Lawful consumption is no defense to an impaired-driving charge; ordinary impaired-driving law applies	434(8)
Manufacture a product using a statutorily defined inherently hazardous substance such as butane	Level 2 drug felony unless licensed; the definition excludes alcohol and ethanol	434(4), 434(12)(a)
Federal law	Schedule I; unchanged by Colorado	21 CFR 1308.11

A property owner or landlord may still ban growing on that property (434(10)).

Are magic mushrooms legal in Colorado, or only decriminalized?

Colorado goes further than decriminalization: state law says lawful personal use is not a violation, and police may not arrest for it.

C.R.S. 18-18-434(5)(d) says a peace officer shall not arrest, and a district attorney shall not charge, a person for a natural medicine offense except as the section expressly provides. Subsection (5)(e) keeps arrests open for offenses the law does not make lawful, such as sale. Subsection (6) says a lawful act cannot be the sole reason for a civil fine, denial of a right or seizure of assets.

This protection applies under state and local law only. Federal agencies enforce federal law. Colorado also defines “natural medicine” as psilocybin, psilocyn, DMT, mescaline (not peyote) and ibogaine, and excludes synthetic versions.

Are magic mushrooms legal in Denver?

Magic mushrooms are legal in Denver under state law for adults 21 and older, and Denver’s own 2019 ordinance is no longer the main rule.

Denver voters passed Initiated Ordinance 301 in 2019 with 50.64% yes, according to Ballotpedia. It made adult possession and use the city’s lowest law enforcement priority. It did not legalize anything. The 2022 state law replaced that patchwork: C.R.S. 18-18-434(9) says a city or county may not impose a greater criminal or civil penalty than the state section sets. So the rules in the table above apply in Denver, Boulder, Aspen and every other Colorado city.

Can Colorado sell magic mushrooms?

Colorado does not allow retail sale of psilocybin, and the 2026 sales license is limited to people attending a session at a healing center.

Ballotpedia’s summary of Proposition 122 says the measure “did not provide for retail sales” of the substances. C.R.S. 44-50-102(3) recognizes both the licensed framework and other statutory exceptions, including the Title 18 personal-use protections. Unlicensed sales for remuneration are prohibited by 18-18-434(5)(c)(II).

HB26-1325, signed 2026-06-04 and effective 2026-08-12, added a narrow route. Its enacted summary says a healing center may not sell regulated natural medicine unless a co-located “limited regulated natural medicine sales” licensee carries out the transaction under set requirements. It also redefines an administration session to include medicine the participant buys to consume during that session. The same bill bars advertising natural medicine, and bars using harm-reduction or support services to carry out sales.

How did Colorado’s law change from Denver 2019 to licensed healing centers?

Colorado’s rules moved from a city ordinance in 2019 to a statewide ballot measure in 2022, a clarifying statute in 2023 and a sales amendment in 2026.

Date	Event	Type
2019	Denver Initiated Ordinance 301 passes with 50.64% yes; adult use becomes the lowest enforcement priority	Local ordinance, in force
2022-11-08	Proposition 122 passes with 53.64% yes; decriminalizes personal use by adults 21+ and creates a regulated program	State statute, in force
2023-05-23	SB23-290 signed	State statute
2023-07-01	SB23-290 takes effect: creates the Natural Medicine Division in the Department of Revenue, sets the under-21, public-use and growing offenses, and keeps the no-arrest rule	State statute, in force
2024-09-30	Statutory deadline in Proposition 122 for rules and the start of license applications	Deadline, per Ballotpedia
2025-11-18	Boulder Reporting Lab reports at least three Boulder facilities offering supervised sessions	News report
2026-06-01	Earliest statutory inclusion date for DMT and mescaline, following board recommendation and approval by the relevant directors; ibogaine has a separate conditional inclusion provision with no such date	Statutory date, C.R.S. 44-50-103(13)
2026-06-04	HB26-1325 signed	State statute
2026-08-12	HB26-1325 takes effect: limited sales license, ibogaine research pilot, facilitator liability limit	State statute, in force

SB23-290 is the law that turned the ballot measure into a working code. Proposition 122 placed the program under the Department of Regulatory Agencies. SB23-290 gave facilitator licensing to the director of the Division of Professions and Occupations and created the Natural Medicine Division in the Department of Revenue to license healing centers, cultivators, manufacturers and testers.

What are Colorado’s licensed healing centers?

A healing center is a state-licensed facility where a licensed facilitator, who must be 21 or older, provides natural medicine services to a participant.

The definitions are in C.R.S. 44-50-103. For what a session involves, see our Colorado psilocybin therapy guide. Services include preparation, administration and integration sessions. Boulder Reporting Lab reported in 2025 that facilitator training runs 150 hours of coursework, a 40-hour practicum and 50 hours of consultation, and that sessions last at least five hours. It also reported prices of about $2,800 at one Boulder center and $1,500 to $4,000 across Boulder centers in November 2025. Prices are set by each center, not by the state.

Count	Date read	Counted by
45 approved, 6 pending, 5 surrendered licenses	Register read 2026-10-20	Agarikon, a private index that copies the state register

The count comes from Agarikon, which copies the state register; the Natural Medicine Division’s license lookup is the official record, and a center’s license number and status should match it.

Psilocybin sessions at a licensed center are state-regulated, which is not the same as FDA approval. If you take antidepressants or other medicines, or have a heart condition, see a clinician before booking.

Is it legal to grow or share mushrooms at home in Colorado?

Colorado allows adults 21 and older to grow and share psilocybin for personal use, with conditions set out in C.R.S. 18-18-434.

Growing must happen on private property, within a cumulative 12 by 12 feet. Outside cultivation needs an enclosed, locked space, and where a person under 21 lives in the dwelling, the growing area itself must be enclosed and locked. Breaking the rules is a drug petty offense with a fine up to $1,000. Sharing is lawful if there is no payment for the medicine itself. Bona fide harm-reduction or support services may be paid for when they accompany consumption of shared medicine, are not advertised, and come with a disclosure that the provider is not a licensed facilitator. HB26-1325 bars using those services to carry out medicine sales.

This page does not give growing instructions. Spore and kit rules differ from state to state, and our guide to magic mushroom spores covers what the law says about them. For a state with no such program, see California; for Colorado’s other plant medicine, see ibogaine in Colorado. More answers by place are in the guides.