Connecticut Democrat governor, Ned Lamont signed a budget bill into law that includes provisions that will give patients access to MDMA and psilocybin.
The bill, which according to Lamont gives the “largest tax cut in history” to taxpayers in the state, allows for psychedelic treatment centers to be established. With this bill, eligible patients will be able to get psilocybin or MDMA-assisted therapy, as an FDA program to provide access to investigational new drugs (IND).
The “qualified patients,” as the bill calls those who can access the novel therapies, must reside in the state and be either a veteran, retired first responders and/or direct care healthcare workers.
As is the case with other states that proposed the creation of workgroups to study the possible benefits of psychedelics, such as Hawaii and Georgia, Connecticut formed a group like that last year, which has, since then, been studying the therapeutic potential of psilocybin.
With the new budget bill signed, the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services must now provide qualified patients with “the funding necessary to receive MDMA-assisted or psilocybin-assisted therapy as part of an expanded access program approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration.”
If the DEA, “or any successor agency,” were to approve MDMA or psilocybin for medicinal use, the state statute of the substances would be aligned with the federal government’s.
On July 1, 2022, the Connecticut Psychedelic Treatment Advisory Board should be created and is expected to consist of eleven members, including people with “experience or expertise in psychedelic research, psychedelic-assisted therapy, public health, access to mental and behavioral health care in underserved communities, veteran mental and behavioral health care, harm reduction and sacramental use of psychedelic substances.”
The board will make recommendations for future legislation regarding psychedelic research and therapy.
The signed budget bill takes language from a previous bill, which called for $3 million to be directed to psychedelics treatment centers with the budget providing funding “within available appropriations.”
