Bill concept filed by Representative Rob Nosse · Sept 10, 2026 · Now drafting the legislation · Goal: passage in 2027
The first legal and regulated psilocybin program in the world is ready for its second draft.
A letter from Nate HowardSeptember 24, 2026Sheri Eckert Foundation
Now the big opportunity begins. Our community rallied through the hearings and the comment period, and on September 22 the Oregon Health Authority withdrew its plan to double every license fee. The agency did not say why. The relief is real and it is temporary, because the changes that would make it last live in statute, not in rulemaking.
Our namesake envisioned this program nearly a decade ago and co-wrote Measure 109, the ballot measure Oregon voters passed in 2020. More than 22,000 people have been served since, with a safety record to match. That record belongs to the facilitators, service center operators, manufacturers and clients who built it and trusted it early.
A program built by ballot measure does not improve on its own. However clearly it should iterate and change, that change comes only by passing a bill or another measure, and that takes organized effort from people who know how the program actually runs. The 2027 session is the chance to do what was always intended.
The first step is taken. Representative Rob Nosse pre-session filed the bill concept on September 10, Legislative Counsel returns one draft by December 1, and the session opens January 19. Nothing has been introduced yet, which is the useful part. The language is still ours to shape.
This is what we are asking that bill to do, and what we would like your eye on while it can still change: cap the license fee in law, refine the program so fees can come down over time, write rules and safeguards to the actual risk profile of psilocybin, cut the unnecessary cost of running the program, bring services to the homes of people who cannot travel, and more.
We have both the opportunity and the mandate to refresh this program, and to bring the Legislature along we need data and results. Good thing we have those in spades, and they came out of your work.
Every change in the bill is built on what the program has shown since it went live in 2023, a little over two years after Measure 109 passed: what is working, what is not, and the research beside it. The skeleton was set in 2020 and has never changed, drawn in part from 2018 polling about what voters would tolerate rather than what would work best. We know a great deal more now.
In 2027 Oregon can give this model, the first state regulated psychedelic healthcare model in the world, its second draft. The Oregon Psychedelic Services Improvement Act is that second draft. We want your corrections before it is final, and your support when it moves.
Data coming soon
The numbers that will make this an easy vote.
OHA’s own fee notice conceded that doubling could shrink the licensee base and deepen the shortfall, and the comments that followed showed how much. That helped stop it. This week the Center for Psychedelic Policy began the first behavioral health economic impact analysis of Oregon’s psilocybin program, carried out by an independent Oregon economics firm. It asks the larger question: what the program saves the state and what it brings in. Oregon may be very glad it improved this program rather than starving it.
Can psilocybin therapy be just as effective, if not more so, at the same price point, if not less, than what the state currently invests in? If the answer is yes, the question stops being how Oregon pays for this program and starts being why we are not investing more in it.
The Sheri Eckert Foundation is working hand in hand with the Center for Psychedelic Policy on an independent analysis, asking whether psilocybin therapy can be just as effective, if not more so, at the same price point, if not less, than what the state currently invests in. The Center is commissioning and leading the work, and its executive director, Sam Chapman, has been making the case for it for months. The work, the firm and the findings are the Center’s.
What we did was buy time. The Center was always going to commission this analysis. What our foundation did, through our parent the Oregon Research Foundation, was make it financially possible to commission it sooner than planned. The timing is the whole point. Findings in hand sooner means they can be put in front of lawmakers during the 2027 session, while the bill to improve Oregon Psilocybin Services is still moving, rather than arriving after the fiscal decisions are already made.
Why these two organizations. Sam Chapman and Nate Howard have been friends and collaborators since 2009, when they met at the University of Oregon, and have worked together on organizations, projects, policies and campaigns ever since. They are two of the Center’s three founding board members. Across 2025 and 2026 the two organizations have been planning together on how to improve the state-regulated psychedelic care model now advancing across the country, and decided to start where the model started, in Oregon.
An independent analysis is independent, which means it may not land where we expect. We would rather say that now than explain it later. And the overlap above is stated on purpose: Nate Howard, this foundation’s executive director, sits on the Center’s founding board alongside Sam. We would rather say so here than leave it to be found.
What it measures, and why it matters
What it measures. What the Oregon Health Plan already pays to treat treatment-resistant depression, mostly repeated medication trials, transcranial magnetic stimulation and electroconvulsive therapy, set against the same patient treated through Oregon Psilocybin Services. Then two more conditions. Then what the licensed businesses contribute to the state: jobs, in-state spending, and the visitors they draw.
Why it matters. Every state that tries this hits the same wall in a budget committee. What does it cost, what does it save, and who says so. This is the first time anyone will answer that with Oregon’s three years of real data, commissioned by the Center for Psychedelic Policy and carried out by a firm whose name carries weight in Salem. The early figures above are the program’s own estimates. Establishing them rigorously is the point.
Keep reading
The whole case, in one place.
The Act change by change, the timeline into the 2027 session, the numbers, the support letter, and a place to propose what you want in the bill.
Keep reading on sherieckert.orgStriving to be of service,
Nate and Team