Oregon regulators are proposing to double licensing fees for psilocybin facilitators and service centers starting January 1, a move that could push half the program's remaining providers out of business. Your gift funds the fight to stop it, and the independent economic case that gets Oregon to fund this program the way it funds any other treatment proven to work.
If Oregon proves that direct public investment in psilocybin therapy produces better outcomes at lower cost, it creates the case every other state can follow.
Oregon's psilocybin program was designed to pay for itself through licensing fees, and that model is breaking. A recent survey of Oregon licensees found 80% of respondents do not plan to renew their license if the fees are doubled. Without action, the program voters approved in 2020 risks losing the providers it depends on, not from lack of demand, but from a funding model that was never built to last.
That crisis is also the opening. Right now, the fee debate is being framed as an internal funding question: can this small program afford to keep itself alive. That's the wrong question, and it's a losing one. The right question is whether psilocybin therapy delivers outcomes the state should be paying for directly, the way it already pays for other behavioral health care.
Oregon is the only state that can answer that question. Three years of operational data. A regulatory framework no other state can match. The largest real-world evidence base in the country. The evidence exists, scattered across clinical trials, OPS data, and numerous real-w. No one has synthesized it into the kind of independent, rigorous case legislators and agency staff can act on. That is what CPP is building right now.
Three years of real-world psilocybin therapy operation, with a safety record as good as, if not better than, controlled clinical trials.
Across more than 22,000 clients served, OPS has recorded 32 instances in which emergency services were called. That represents a real-world severe adverse event rate of 0.15%.
The Oregon Health Authority's biennial behavioral health budget jumped 44% in 2021-23 to $1.35 billion, and the Governor's 2025-27 budget allocated an additional $130 million to sustain increased Medicaid behavioral health expenditure.
That's on top of standard depression care costs, and it recurs every year. A single course of psilocybin therapy costs $1,500 to $3,000, one time, not annually.
Identify which patient populations produce the largest cost savings relative to current state behavioral health spending. Treatment-resistant depression, tobacco cessation, alcohol use disorder. This analysis becomes the basis for the fiscal case, and the fee hike fight.
Compile clinical trial data, Oregon real-world outcomes, and state spending data into a single policy-ready package that legislators and agency staff can act on immediately.
Map the regulatory and legislative steps required to move Oregon from a fee-funded licensing model to direct public investment in psilocybin therapy as a covered behavioral health treatment.
Build the provider and advocacy coalition needed to both stop the immediate fee increase and support a long-term public investment case: service centers, legislators, clinicians, and clients.
CPP is led by Sam Chapman, who managed the Measure 109 campaign, authored SB 303, and has 15 years of Oregon legislative advocacy experience, giving CPP direct credibility with the agency staff and legislators who will decide this program's future.
CPP is in active conversations with legislators, coalition partners, and the Governor's office to pause the proposed fee increase before it takes effect January 1. This is the immediate fight your gift funds today.
At the same time, CPP is producing the independent ROI analysis, evidence synthesis, and legislative strategy needed to make the case that Oregon should fund psilocybin therapy directly, not just protect it from fee increases, but invest in it as a proven, cost-effective behavioral health tool.
A successful Oregon outcome, both stopping the fee hikes and proving the fiscal case, produces a template every other state exploring psychedelic access can follow. It proves state-regulated psilocybin programs can function as cost-efficient tools in a state behavioral health system. Oregon's window to establish this proof point is now. After that, other states will move first.
CPP estimates it will cost approximately $30,000 to complete the independent economic analysis and translate it into the action-ready assets legislators, agency staff, and the Governor's office can actually use, the report itself, the evidence synthesis, and the materials that carry the case into meetings that matter.
This is the analysis that breaks the fiscal note barrier for psilocybin legislation, not just in Oregon, but for every state weighing direct public investment in this kind of care. It moves the field from philanthropic dependence to sustainable public funding.
Every dollar goes directly toward stopping the proposed fee increase and funding the independent economic analysis that makes Oregon's case winnable.
To discuss CPP's work or explore ways to support the campaign, reach out to our founder and executive director.
The Center for Psychedelic Policy is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Contributions are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.