Colorado recently issued its first license to a psilocybin healing center. In 2022, voters in Colorado chose to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms and create healing centers for psilocybin therapy. Since then, it’s been a long road for the state to set up a regulatory framework.
Two state agencies — the Colorado Department of Revenue and the Department of Regulatory Agencies — license and regulate the natural medicine industry. Both agencies adopted final rules and released the framework for training programs in late 2024.
As of Dec. 31, 2024, the agencies began accepting license applications for natural medicine businesses and facilitators. Since then, the Department of Regulatory Agencies has issued 124 licenses for facilitators.
The Department of Revenue website says one cultivator and one manufacturer have been licensed, as well as one healing center — The Center Origin in downtown Denver.
“Welcome to the Center Origin,” said Elizabeth Cooke, co-founder and CEO of The Center Origin.
Former psychotherapist and social worker Cooke founded The Center Origin in 2023 as a holistic healing center.
“We needed some solutions that were not pharmacologically based,” Cooke said. “I very much believe in plant medicine.”
As the first licensed natural medicine healing center in Colorado, the center will soon offer guided psychedelic journeys.
“It’s very exciting. I feel we’re really pioneering this space,” Cooke said.
Clients must first undergo a safety screening and two prep sessions outlining their intentions and helping the center decide the best dosage and clinical facilitator for them.
“We’re thinking about this in kind of two different categories,” Cooke said. “One is people that really just want a kind of more existential understanding. They want to explore big questions, spiritual questions, or they just want to reconnect to themselves, their community, their family or to nature. So it can be that kind of a quest. Then, there is the more clinical side of things, with people that suffer from PTSD, depression, anxiety.”
“This is of our four administration areas. So this room is set up for individual or a couple,” said Mikki Vogt, co-founder and clinical director for The Center Origin.
When a client arrives, they choose a fragrance and music to accompany their journey.
“Our smell is the oldest of all of our senses, right? So I have three fragrances that people can choose from in a roll on,” Cooke said.
They then are given the agreed upon psilocybin dose.
“They can either take capsules or a tea that will contain the medicine, and that’s all tested, licensed psilocybin mushrooms,” Cooke said.
Then, the journey begins.
“It’s very self-guided. If there’s a need, then we’re always here to respond,” Cooke said.
A clinical facilitator like Vogt will be there to guide the client and use supportive touch as agreed upon prior.
“Each room is equipped with a zero gravity chair and or a futon, and each room comes with blankets, pillows, eye masks, headphones, everything a journeyer and a facilitator would need for the day of,” Vogt said.
“Some people have described it as sitting in God’s lap, or being held by God, and looking out with a higher kind of connection, and looking at themselves, the human condition, if you will, and kind of that experience … then, there’s also kind of a reflection of who, what got you here, and where you want to go,” Cooke said.
A session can last five to eight hours and will cost around $3,500. Cooke says usually only one session is required, but clients can also schedule follow-up “integration” sessions where they unpack the experience with their facilitator.
The center can’t start offering these journeys just yet. Although Cooke hopes they can get started in the next month, they have to wait for the psilocybin itself.
Colorado requires that it be sourced by a state-licensed cultivator or manufacturer and must be tested. According to the Department of Revenue website, no testing center has yet been licensed, but one application is currently pending.
On Thursday, the Natural Medicine Advisory Board will meet. The public can join but will need to register first.
