Salt Lake Tribune: A framework for safe access to psychotherapeutic medicine in Utah

Thanks to the Salt Lake Tribune for publishing an op-ed I wrote about how we can responsibly approach psychedelic-assisted therapy in Utah. It’s well understood that Utah is experiencing a mental health crisis. Recognizing this and the need for additional tools to help patients, the Legislature created the Utah Mental Illness & Psychotherapy Task Force earlier this year. The task force was charged with examining the evidence regarding psychotherapeutics and making recommendations on whether they can be safely used and, if so, how.

Following months of rigorous study, the task force recently concluded that MDMA and psilocybin (“magic mushrooms”) can offer significant benefits to those with mental illness and that side effects of MDMA and psilocybin are generally mild, and when administered in a clinical setting, neither leads to substance abuse.

The Utah Legislature should build on the task force’s recommendations and create a legal framework for patients to safely access psychotherapeutics. Many of our family, friends and neighbors are silently suffering from a lack of quality mental health care. Making these substances legal for clinical use can be a very important step to help providers like me help more of our fellow Utahns.

This is just a snippet of the thoughts I shared in my op-ed. If you’d like to read the full article, check out the link below!