The first legal and regulated psilocybin program in the world is ready for its second draft
The 2027 Oregon Psychedelic Services Improvement Act
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.
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. Its structure lives in statute, which rulemaking cannot touch, so changing it takes a bill and the organized effort of people who know how the program actually runs. The 2027 session is that chance.
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 is introduced yet, which is the useful part: the language is still ours to shape.
This is what we are asking that bill to do: 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.
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: 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.
Nate & Team
Awareness and support for the Oregon Psychedelic Services Improvement Act
A bill to improve Oregon Psilocybin Services, pre-session filed for the 2027 session by Representative Rob Nosse. On September 22 the Oregon Health Authority withdrew its plan to double every license fee, after clients, facilitators, operators and organizations made the case across Oregon and to the Governor's office. The Act is the chance to do the rest: cap the license fee in law, write rules and safeguards to the actual risk profile of psilocybin, cut unnecessary cost, add services at home for the people who need them, and more. Legislative Counsel returns a draft by December 1. Individuals and organizations can add their names now, and anyone can propose what the Act should fix.
2027 is the year to refresh the program
Where the bill is now, what happens next, and the dates that decide it. Pre-session dates are set by chamber rule (SCR 209). Dates marked as a pattern follow the 2025 session; the 2027 in-session deadlines are adopted by concurrent resolution on Organizational Day, expected about January 11, 2027.
- Nov 3, 2020Voters create the programMeasure 109 passes, creating the program our namesake envisioned and wrote into the measure: the first legal and regulated psilocybin services in the world.
- 2023 to 2026The program proves itselfMore than 22,000 people served since 2023, fifty years of university-led research behind it, and a safety record to match: 9 severe reactions across 5,935 clients in 2025, or 0.15 percent. Rulemaking only tinkers at the edges; the skeleton lives in statute and has never changed. The Legislature backfilled the budget from the General Fund twice, then approved none for 2025-27. A growing movement turns to the 2027 session.
- Sept 10, 2026The Improvement Act is filed as a bill conceptRep. Rob Nosse pre-session files the concept for the Oregon Psychedelic Services Improvement Act with Legislative Counsel for the 2027 session.
- Sept 22, 2026Fee doubling stoppedAfter hearings, written comment and hundreds of messages to the Governor's office, OHA announces it will not adopt the proposed fee increases. Fees stay where they are. The rally bought time. Writing the freeze into statute would make it last.
- Now through Dec 1, timing TBDThe Improvement Act takes shape with Legislative CounselLC drafts the Improvement Act from the concept and can call with questions at any point. The revision items, including other medicines, get worked in here. The draft is due by 5 PM December 1 and filed by December 11.
- Jan 19 to June 27, 2027Passing the bill in the 2027 sessionSession convenes January 19 (set by ORS 171.010) and must end by June 27, day 160. Committee hearings, a fiscal review, floor votes in both chambers, then the Governor.
- 2027The program improvedThe fee capped in law, unnecessary cost cut, care at home for the people who need it, safeguards written to the evidence, and more.
Every date on the road: the fee reversal, the election, filing day, committee cutoffs, sine die
- Nov 3, 2020Voters create the programMeasure 109 passes, creating the program our namesake envisioned and wrote into the measure: the first legal and regulated psilocybin services in the world.
- Jan 2023Licensing opensOHA begins accepting license applications on January 2. The first service center is licensed in May and serves its first clients that June. About 22,000 people served since.
- Aug 28, 2026OHA proposes doubling the feesThe fee rule notice is filed: facilitators $2,000 to $4,000, service centers and manufacturers $10,000 to $20,000, reduced tiers eliminated. OHA's own notice says the increase may reduce the number of licensees and deepen the shortfall.
- Sept 10, 2026Bill concept filedRep. Rob Nosse pre-session files the bill concept with Legislative Counsel for the 2027 session, a day ahead of the Sept 11 deadline for requests.
- Sept 22, 2026OHA withdraws the fee doublingHearings were held Sept 15 and 16 and comments closed Sept 21. The next day OHA announces it will not adopt the proposed fee increases, or the rest of the August 28 rulemaking. Fees stay at their current levels, reduced tiers included. The non-fee changes go to a separate rulemaking, with comment anticipated in December.
- Now through Dec 1, timing TBDRefinement with Legislative CounselLC drafts from the concept and can call with questions at any point. This is where the revision items, including other medicines, get worked in. LC sets the timing.
- Fall 2026Interim data landsInterim findings from the independent economic analysis, ahead of the people who will score the bill.
- Nov 3, 2026General electionEvery House seat and half the Senate are on the ballot. The Assembly that hears this bill is chosen here.
- December 2026, anticipatedComment on OHA's non-fee rulemakingOHA says it will open a new rulemaking in the coming weeks for the program changes that were unrelated to fees. Public comment is expected in December; OHA has not published the date. Watch the Oregon Bulletin.
- Dec 1, 2026, 5 PMLC delivers the draftA chamber rule sets the deadline. The sponsor's office reviews the draft, and corrections can still be asked for before filing. Dec 1 to 3 are also the last Legislative Days before session.
- Dec 11, 2026, 5 PMPre-session filing closesThe bill must be filed at the House or Senate Desk by this deadline to get first reading on day one. After introduction, changes come as amendments.
- Jan 15, 2027, plannedOHA's non-fee rule changes take effectThe planned effective date for the rule changes OHA carried over from the withdrawn process, none of them fee changes. The bill, meanwhile, caps fees at the January 1, 2026 level so a future rule cannot raise them.
- About Jan 11, 2027, patternBill number and first readingOn Organizational Day the pre-session bills are read for the first time and get their numbers, and the Speaker refers each to a committee. We will post the number here.
- Jan 19, 2027Session convenesSet by statute (ORS 171.010): the Tuesday after Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Hearings are scheduled by the committee chair after referral; agendas and written testimony run through OLIS.
- Mar to Apr 2027, patternFirst-chamber deadlinesA bill must be posted for a work session and voted out of its first committee by dates like March 19 and April 7 if the 2025 pattern holds. The fiscal impact statement is issued when the bill is scheduled for a work session.
- May 2027, patternSecond-chamber deadlinesThe same cutoffs in the second chamber, around May 7 and May 21 on the 2025 pattern, then floor votes and concurrence.
- June 27, 2027Constitutional sine dieDay 160 of the session, the limit the constitution sets for odd years. In 2025 the Legislature adjourned two days early; expect the last two weeks of June. Passed bills go to the Governor.
- 2027A refreshed programFees held in law and then lowered, costs cut, access widened, safeguards written to the evidence, and more.
We narrowly avoided the fee hike. Now the real work
On September 22 the Oregon Health Authority withdrew its plan to double every license fee. It happened because people showed up. Past clients, facilitators, workers, service centers, manufacturers and organizations testified and wrote. Hundreds of messages reached the Governor's office, and advocates sat down with its staff. OHA's own notice had conceded the increase could shrink the licensee base and deepen the shortfall, and the comments proved the point. The program works. The skeleton under it was still written to 2018 polling about what voters would accept, and it carries compliance that costs money without making anyone safer. Rulemaking cannot change a skeleton that lives in statute. The 2027 session can.
The full story: how the doubling was stopped, why nobody should count on a fourth rescue, and three pressure points
May reduce the overall number of licensees and create a more significant program budget shortfall.
How it was stopped. The advisory board and the rules advisory committees pushed back first. At the September hearings and in written comment, licensees, workers, advocates, clients and community members described the same thing: closures, attrition, less access, a program that could not carry the load. A facilitator survey found most would not renew at doubled fees. Hundreds of emails reached the Governor's office and the head of OHA. Advocates sat down with the Governor's staff, briefed legislators, and used public records requests to put the agency's own numbers on the table. OHA's notice had already conceded the increase could shrink the licensee base and deepen the shortfall. On September 22 the agency withdrew the rule.
The promise of a better program helped. The argument made across Oregon and to decision makers was that the fees should not double because the program can be retooled: cheaper to run, with no undue expense, built on everything learned from 22,000 clients and hundreds of licensees. Doubling risked a downward spiral instead of giving that retooling a chance.
Three rescues. Measure 109 had to pass a statewide vote in 2020, fifty years into a drug war, so it was written to what polling said voters would accept: a program that pays its own way on license fees. The Legislature backfilled it from the General Fund twice, once in each of its first two budget cycles, four years in all, then approved nothing for 2025-27. September's reversal is the third rescue. Oregon heads into a budget-cutting session, and nobody should count on a fourth.
Why statute. Rulemaking can only tinker at the edges. The program's structure and skeleton are in ORS 475A, and cost containment that lasts takes legislation or a ballot measure. Rep. Rob Nosse's filed concept is that vehicle. Three pressure points it takes on:
Fees nearly doubled on a shrinking base
The withdrawn rule would have taken facilitator licenses from $2,000 to $4,000 and service centers and manufacturers from $10,000 to $20,000, and eliminated the reduced tiers for veterans, low income applicants and nonprofits. Nothing in statute stops a future rule from trying again. The Act caps fees in law.
Cost is driven by practice, not by law
No statute requires the agency to investigate every complaint it receives, and no statute requires annual inspections. Those are choices. They are also the largest controllable cost in the program.
Access gaps are being litigated
Oregonians who are homebound or in hospice cannot lawfully receive services where they live. That question is in federal court rather than in statute, which is the slowest and most expensive way to answer it.
Six years after the vote and three years into services, Oregon can regulate psilocybin the way the evidence reads, not the way 2018 polling read
We are no longer guessing. Oregon now has three years of operating data, a session level safety record, a client population measured in the tens of thousands, and, as of September, proof that the people in this program get heard when it counts. Almost every serious cost in the program traces back to a rule written for a risk profile the data does not support. The 2027 session is the chance to rewrite those rules to the actual risk profile of psilocybin, the work, the data we have collected and the research done, and to take the improvements that were never winnable at the ballot. On fifty years of university-led evidence, a program that treats the source instead of the symptoms is almost certainly saving the state money already.
Read the full case: why this program is almost certainly paying for itself
Here is the part that should make a budget writer smile. American healthcare spends absurd amounts treating symptoms. This model treats the source. Fifty years of research, much of it federally funded and all of it university-led under IRB review, the gold standard, points the same direction: people who get this care use less of everything else. Oregon has now run thousands of people through it. On the analogous evidence, the program is almost certainly saving the state money, and quite possibly a lot of it. It could be one of the most successful healthcare innovations in decades, and it started here.
Measure 109 had to pass a statewide vote before any of this existed, and it had to pass in 2020, against fifty years of drug-war messaging. So its skeleton was built from polling done nearly a decade ago: what voters would allow, not what the program deserved. A program funded the way healthcare is funded was not on the table. A program that pays its own way on license fees was. Everyone who wrote it knew the fixes would have to come later.
The budget is still the opening. Stopping the doubling did not fix the arithmetic: no General Fund for 2025-27, a fee base that shrinks when rates rise, and a budget-cutting session ahead. A legislature that will not reopen a settled social question in a good year will absolutely reopen one that is costing it money. That is the whole strategy: use the fiscal problem as the reason to rebuild the skeleton, and take the improvements that were never winnable at the ballot. The case that carried September, that a retooled program costs less and serves more, is the case the bill makes in January.
The model has since been enacted in two more states, Colorado in 2022 and New Mexico in 2025, with dozens of states following in some form. Colorado's 2022 measure named the natural medicines its program could grow to include and set a process for weighing them on evidence. Oregon's statute stops at psilocybin. Item 10 in the Act section below is the ask to change that.
Ten changes. Nine are filed. The tenth is the ask for the revision with Legislative Counsel
Representative Rob Nosse pre-session filed the request on September 10, 2026, and Legislative Counsel returns a draft by December 1. Tap any change for what was asked for, or read the request exactly as filed.
1. ComplaintsScreen before investigating
Require a written determination that a complaint meets a threshold before an investigation opens, on the model Oregon already uses for government ethics complaints, and refer conduct that belongs to a health licensing board to that board.
2. FeesLock the freeze into statute, then cut
Cap every psilocybin fee in statute at the amount in effect on January 1, 2026, so the freeze won in September cannot be undone by a future rule, reduce license and renewal fees below that, keep the reduced fee tiers the withdrawn rule would have eliminated, hold, and then index to inflation.
3. LicensesTwo year terms, risk based inspection
Move from annual renewal to two year terms, three years on a clean record, and tie inspection frequency to compliance history instead of to the calendar.
4. AccessServices in the home
Let a licensed service center send a facilitator to a client who cannot reasonably travel, with the psilocybin staying in the center's custody the entire time.
5. ProvidersA provider based license
Let a clinician who already holds a facilitator license serve their own clients in their own practice, without building out a separate service center, with every board's scope of practice untouched.
6. SitingRepeal the school setback
Remove the 1,000 foot school setback and the two provisions that exist only to soften it, and bar the agency from re-imposing it by rule.
7. StructureMove production licensing to OLCC
Move manufacturer and laboratory licensing to the agency that already does exactly this work for cannabis, instead of duplicating it inside a health agency.
8. AccountabilitySet a cost target
State what the program should cost to run and require the agency to justify spending above it to Ways and Means, so the budget is a decision rather than a drift.
9. GuardrailsSay what does not change
State on the face of the Act everything the bill does not touch, so the debate stays on cost and access rather than on fears the bill never raised.
10. Medicines (revision)Give the Legislature a path to add other medicines
Colorado's 2022 measure, built in part on Oregon's model, named the natural medicines its program could grow to include and set a process for weighing them on evidence. Oregon's statute stops at psilocybin. We intend to add other medicines in the December revision wherever the evidence supports it, by the Legislature's own vote and under the same facilitated safeguards, and only where doing so does not compromise the bill's core goals: cutting what the program costs, smarter regulation, a fee freeze written into statute, and a path to lower them after that (timing to be decided). The same test applies to every other improvement people propose. It goes in if it keeps those goals intact and has support in the community and in the Legislature. The concept as filed is psilocybin only; the draft will be refined with Legislative Counsel before session.
The facilitated model stays as voters approved it, written into the bill itself rather than left to assurance. Tap any one for the detail.
No weaker training
No reduction in facilitator education, training, examination or ethical standards.
No take home, no unsupervised use
Every administration session stays supervised, in person, with a licensed facilitator present.
New medicines only through the Legislature
The concept as filed is psilocybin only. Our intention is to add other medicines in the revision wherever the evidence supports it, by the Legislature's own vote and under the same facilitated safeguards, and never at the expense of the bill's core goals. Nothing is added by agency rule.
No change to any board's authority
Every health licensing board keeps its scope of practice and its disciplinary jurisdiction.
No change to the tax
The psilocybin tax and its distribution are untouched.
No loss of local control
Cities and counties keep every authority they have today, including the ability to prohibit.
Support the Oregon Psychedelic Services Improvement Act
Sign as an individual or on behalf of an organization. Signatures go to legislators with the letter ahead of the 2027 session. We use your email only to confirm your signature and keep you posted on the bill.
To the Oregon Legislature:
We are licensees, facilitators, clients, clinicians and supporters of Oregon Psilocybin Services. We ask you to pass the Oregon Psychedelic Services Improvement Act in the 2027 session, and to start by writing current fee levels into statute.
Read the full letter
Oregon built the nation's first regulated psilocybin program, and the model works. More than 22,000 people have been served since 2023. In 2025, 5,935 clients received services and 9 severe reactions were reported, a rate of 0.15 percent. What does not work is the cost structure. The program received no General Fund support for 2025-27, and in August 2026 the Oregon Health Authority proposed doubling every license fee on January 1, 2027: facilitators from $2,000 to $4,000, service centers and manufacturers from $10,000 to $20,000, with reduced fees eliminated. OHA's own notice conceded the increase "may reduce the overall number of licensees and create a more significant program budget shortfall." On September 22, after hearings, public comment and hundreds of messages to the Governor's office, OHA withdrew the increase. Part of what carried that argument was the promise of this bill: a program that costs less to run, so the fees never need to double. Nothing in statute prevents the next increase.
We support legislation that:
- Caps every license fee at its current level in statute, so no increase can take effect by rule.
- Reduces fees where possible, through sliding scales, multiyear licenses and risk-based inspection.
- Sets a written threshold for opening an investigation, modeled on ORS 244.260.
- Lets licensed service centers serve hospice, palliative and mobility-limited clients where they live.
- Creates a provider-based license for licensed behavioral health providers.
- Adds, in the December revision, a framework for the Legislature to weigh other medicines on evidence, by its own vote, under the same facilitated safeguards.
- Keeps facilitator training, examination and ethics standards intact, and the facilitated model unchanged.
Fee revenue grows with participation, not fee rates. A leaner program can be fee-supported on a growing base, as voters were promised. September showed what this community can do when the program is at stake. Please pass this bill.
Respectfully,
The undersigned
Add your name
Individuals and organizations can sign. We will not share your address, and you can withdraw your name any time by writing to info@sherieckert.org.
What would you fix? Tell the people drafting the Act
Legislative Counsel returns one draft by December 1, and the revision is where the community's ideas go in. If you have sat in a session, held a license, run a center, grown the medicine or tried to get care, you know something the drafters do not. Send it. Every proposal is read, and the ones that keep the core goals intact and have support are carried into the revision.
Prefer email? Send your proposal to info@sherieckert.org with Improvement Act in the subject line.
Nearly 75 percent less to run, and fees that fall instead of climbing
Every bill in the 2027 session will be judged by one question: does it cut costs or add them? This one cuts. The doubling is withdrawn, but the arithmetic that sank it has not changed: no General Fund, a fee base that shrinks when rates rise, and a cost structure of about $3.6 million a year. The bill moves Oregon Psilocybin Services toward a program that runs closer to $900,000, resolves the in-home access lawsuit by design, and grows the licensee base that fee revenue depends on. Tap a number for the chart behind it, with the arithmetic and the caveat.
Show the working: where the savings come from, why fees alone cannot fix it, and the caveats
The concept calls the goal aggressive but possibly possible: program costs shrink by nearly 75 percent, fees fall instead of climbing, the litigation resolves by design, and outcomes improve across the program, its businesses and its clients. The target is an administrative budget closer to $900,000 a year, or even $1 million to $2 million, against the 2023-25 baseline of $3,627,586 a year. At $900,000 the state saves $2,727,586 a year and $13,637,930 over five years, and if the state would otherwise resume backfilling at the 2023-25 General Fund level of $1,569,836 a year, the avoided General Fund need is approximately $7,849,180 over five years. The $900,000 figure is a planning scenario, not a measurement. It is the number the bill is built to reach.
The savings come from five places. A written threshold for opening an investigation, modeled on ORS 244.260, because complaint-driven investigations are the largest cost driver and no statute requires the agency to investigate every complaint. Multiyear licenses and risk-based inspections. Scaled regulation for provider based settings, so licensed behavioral health providers can offer services within their existing practices. Shared regulatory infrastructure as the state consolidates its cannabis programs. And an end to litigation defense spend, by resolving the in-home access case in statute rather than in federal court.
The arithmetic explains why fees cannot be the fix on their own. For 2025-27 the Legislature approved no General Fund support, so the program must run on license fees and limited psilocybin tax revenue unless another funding solution is created. By internal analysis for planning, the withdrawn doubling would have yielded roughly $2.3 to 2.4 million a year on today's licensee base even at zero attrition, against a cost structure of about $3.6 million, and that is before the attrition OHA's own notice conceded the increase could cause. A $3.6 million program cannot be fee-funded at any survivable rate on a shrinking base.
Smaller fees beat bigger fees because fee revenue scales with participation, not with fee rates. Lower entry costs grow the licensee pool, and every added licensee generates client volume and 15 percent point-of-sale tax revenue. Colorado shows the direction: after Proposition 122 passed in 2022, its provider-scale tier reached 37 of its 39 licensed centers within a year, a count we hold as internal analysis for planning until Colorado's licensing data confirms it. A $900,000 program can be fee-funded at reduced rates on a growing base.
These figures are internal analysis for planning. The point of filing is to let Legislative Counsel, LFO research and, once the bill moves, the fiscal impact statement referee them. If the numbers hold, the 2027 session gets a bill that cuts. If they move, they move in public, with the state's own analysts holding the pen.
Oregon budgets biennially and 2023-25 biennium figures are split evenly per year: these are budgeted and authorized program amounts, not audited actuals, presented as internal analysis for planning.
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. In late September 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.
Three things, in the order they matter
The fee doubling is withdrawn and the bill is filed. Support is what carries a bill from filed to passed, and support is the part everyone reading this can add.
Now
- Sign the support letter, as yourself or for your organization. It goes to legislators with the bill.
- Propose what you would fix. The draft is not final until session, and the people closest to the work know what belongs in it.
- Join the list so you hear when the draft comes back in December.
- Send this page to one person who holds a license.
Oct to Dec
- If you facilitate or run a center, tell us what your license costs you to hold and what a lower fee would let you do. Numbers move legislators.
- If your organization would sign on in support, say so now so we can build the list before January.
- Comment on OHA's non-fee rulemaking when it opens, anticipated in December.
When session opens
- Contact your own legislator. A constituent is worth more than an advocate.
- Submit testimony, written or in person, when the hearing is scheduled.
- Show up. Hearings are public and rooms that are full read differently than rooms that are not.
What is still open, how this got here, and who built it
Still being decided: what could still go into this bill
Legislative Counsel returns one draft. Between now and the start of session there is room to add, and the people closest to this work are the ones who should say what. There is now a proposals form for exactly that. Two things are actively under discussion.
Room for other medicines. Colorado's 2022 measure, built in part on the model Oregon passed in 2020, named the natural medicines its program could grow to include and set a process for weighing them. Oregon's statute stops at psilocybin. Our intention is to add other medicines in the revision if at all possible, by the Legislature's own vote and under the same facilitated safeguards, so long as it does not compromise the core goals: lower program costs, smarter regulation, frozen and then lower license fees. Item 10 in the Act section has the detail.
Other improvements follow the same test. An idea goes into the bill if it keeps the core goals intact and has support in the community and in the Legislature. That is the whole filter.
Whatever you have been carrying. If you hold a license, facilitate, run a center, or have tried to get care through this program, you know something the drafters do not. Tell us what you would fix. That is still the single most useful thing you can send us.
How this got here: four years of learning, then the opening
None of this started in 2026. What changed in 2026 was that the problem got expensive enough to be worth solving, and the program had earned a better draft.
Services begin, and so does the conversation
The first service centers open. The first gaps show up immediately: people who cannot travel, clinicians who cannot use a license they already hold, a cost structure nobody has stress tested. The conversation about a fix starts here.
The problems stop being theoretical
Operators start reporting the same friction from opposite ends of the state. Access litigation begins. The shape of a corrections bill starts to be visible, without a path to pass one.
The fee-only model gets its first real test
After two budget cycles of General Fund backfill, the Legislature approves none for 2025-27, and the fee-only skeleton written to pass in 2020 has to carry the whole program alone. What had been a list of improvements becomes the case for a better funding structure.
The opening arrives
In August OHA proposes doubling every license fee. Clients, facilitators, operators and organizations answer, at the hearings, in writing and in hundreds of messages to the Governor's office, and on September 22 OHA withdraws the increase. A year of strategy and statutory mechanics has already produced the request Representative Rob Nosse pre-session filed on September 10, so the freeze can be written into law and the program rebuilt on what it has learned.
Session
Legislative Counsel returns a draft by December 1. The bill goes to the desk. Session opens in January, and everything above becomes a hearing, a fiscal analysis, and a vote.
Who built this: a small coalition, and a lot of people's fingerprints
The Legislative Counsel request was drafted by Nate Howard, executive director of the Sheri Eckert Foundation, working from rounds of feedback from Representative Rob Nosse's office and from guidance given generously by people who have spent years on this program. The foundation is named for Sheri Eckert, who co-authored the measure that created it.
Names will be added as people choose to be listed. Everyone who shaped this pushed back on some part of it, which is why it is better than it was.
Where the numbers come from
Client totals and the 2025 safety figures: Oregon Psilocybin Services 2025 year end data summary. Fee amounts and the quoted concession: OHA's proposed rule notice filed August 28, 2026. The withdrawal: OHA's September 22, 2026 notice on its Oregon Psilocybin Services rules page that it will not file final rules from that rulemaking and will not adopt the proposed fee increases. Appropriation and General Fund figures: Legislative Fiscal Office budget records. Savings and fee-yield figures: internal analysis for planning, labeled as such wherever they appear. The 35-state, 100-bill count for 2026 comes from the foundation's policy tracker and the state sources it cites. Client totals, the safety rate, the cost-per-remission comparison and the residency figures come from the Center for Psychedelic Policy's Oregon Psilocybin Program Snapshot, August 2026. Oregon Psilocybin Services, including rulemaking and the fee notice.
Keep me posted
Updates when the Legislative Counsel draft comes back, when a hearing gets scheduled, and when there is something specific and useful to do. Not often, and never without a reason.
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Numbers Oregon Psilocybin Services 2025 year end data summary; OHA's proposed rule notice of August 28, 2026 and its September 22, 2026 notice withdrawing it; Legislative Fiscal Office budget records. Savings figures are internal analysis for planning. Detail above.
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We will tell you when the draft comes back in December and when a hearing is scheduled.
Want to know when this actually moves?
The Oregon Psychedelic Services Improvement Act was filed as a bill concept for the 2027 session by Rep. Rob Nosse to improve Oregon Psilocybin Services: cap the fee in law, cut unnecessary cost, bring care to people who cannot travel, and more. We will tell you when the draft comes back in December and when a hearing is scheduled. Nothing else.