Are magic mushrooms growing on state officials?

Feb. 26—What's the appetite for psychedelic mushrooms in New Mexico? That's something state lawmakers want health experts to figure out.

Mycologists are waiting for answers, too.

Lawmakers passed a memorial in the 2024 legislative session that asks the New Mexico Department of Health and the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center to study the possible use of psilocybin, a psychoactive compound found in some fungi known as magic mushrooms, for certain therapeutic medical treatments.

Research has shown the psychedelic can help treat depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction.

"It's just going to be another natural substance that can provide relief to some folks, and we should be embracing anything that can help people out," said bill sponsor Sen. Jeff Steinborn, D-Las Cruces.

Memorials only need to pass one chamber of the Legislature and don't require a signature from the governor to take effect. Senate Memorial 12, with lawmakers from both sides of the aisle sponsoring it, passed the Senate unanimously. It doesn't come with any money and is just a request.

Steinborn said lawmakers also could try to advance a bill to the governor, which could help determine a regulatory framework and funding needed to establish a state-approved psilocybin program. But, he said, he hopes the memorial directs state officials to look into the compound and recommend appropriate next steps to lawmakers.

"My goal in the memorial was just to continue to shine a light on this issue and to show our executive branch if there's bipartisan support for moving forward and to give them more encouragement to do this," he said.

Health department spokesperson David Morgan said the agency is still evaluating the memorial and determining priorities for potential involvement in an upcoming psilocybin study.

While the effort is focused on medicinal uses, experts in other areas have been keeping an eye on it, too. Steinborn said there's clearly an economic opportunity for people to grow mushrooms if the state created a program.

"We've seen interest already from small farmers in the state and even people who grow mushrooms," he said.

The Journal toured two mushroom farms potentially interested in changing up business if mycologists could legally grow psilocybin mushrooms.

If allowed, Matthew Fien Gretton, owner of Matt's Mushroom Farm, said he definitely would grow psilocybin mushrooms, a psychedelic he said is used to help people reset brain processes and break patterns of thought or behavior.

"I think it's something that should be available to everyone because of how valuable it is," he said.

Estevan Hernandez, owner and senior mycologist of New Mexico Fungi, gets calls four or five times a week from people asking about magic mushrooms. He said if the state approved psilocybin, he might expand the education he offers on mushrooms.

Both Albuquerque farms each week produce around 100 pounds or more of gourmet mushrooms, edible fungi known for their high culinary value. Hernandez and Fien Gretton said there's an appetite for mushrooms in New Mexico and plenty of room for more fungi producers.

"There's tons of demand for fresh mushrooms here," Hernandez said.

Producing psilocybin

Fien Gretton said if the state allowed psilocybin, he would want to start growing the compound at his farm.

He said he's not sure if it would make money. It depends on how the state would roll business out, he said, and how many people want it. For example, he said, if it's only approved for a medical program, the state wouldn't be encouraging people to buy psilocybin at a local corner store.

Senate Memorial 12 is focused only on a possible program for therapeutic treatments.

Hernandez said if things moved forward with psilocybin, he'd need to look into if it's profitable for New Mexico Fungi to expand to that business.

He said he feels very comfortable growing gourmet mushrooms and maybe would find himself more on the education side of things with psilocybin, if the state were to authorize it for more uses. He said his farm already offers classes that teach people how to grow their own mushrooms at home.

"We try to put all the tools and equipment in people's hands to grow whatever kind of mushrooms they would like at home," he said.

He said mushrooms with psilocybin are arguably one of the easiest mushrooms to grow at home.

He said magic mushrooms are also grown using different substrates — the material the mushroom is grown on — from gourmet mushrooms. He said some people grow magic mushrooms on manure, which he said he's skeptical of purely because of any potential cross contamination with the gourmet food space that his farm has.

"I really have no interest in bringing animal manure into a clean food production facility," he said.

Fien Gretton said he's not as worried about that because mushrooms don't accumulate many compounds; they're excellent at digesting organic molecules.

Hernandez said his farm could also offer genetics depending on what the legal space would look like. New Mexico Fungi does its own in-house genetics already, he said.

New Mexico Fungi and Matt's Mushroom Farm both sell legal mushrooms that are also known for their medical uses, like lion's mane.

Fien Gretton referenced peer-reviewed studies on the neuron regeneration, memory and attention effects from lion's mane, which is one of two types of mushrooms his farm sells. He said it's been used as a treatment for people with dementia or people recovering from a brain injury.

His farm sells the mushroom as a culinary ingredient and intends it for that type of use, he said, but people can ingest it however they want. He said some clients looking for the medical benefits like it dehydrated.

"They don't care if it tastes good or not, because they're taking it the same way you take an herbal supplement," he said.

A magic mushroom market

Hernandez said he expects a potential psilocybin market would be very competitive.

"Looking at what's happened with cannabis, right, I don't expect the psilocybin market to be anything much different," he said.

In contrast, Fien Gretton said psilocybin is vastly different from cannabis and would require a different implementation. Nonetheless, he said, there would be demand for it.

With cannabis, Fien Gretton said, vendors pushed for legalization knowing they could sell their product at a premium price "to a public that was really hungry for it."

He said nobody he knows uses psilocybin for recreational use; they're using it for treatment purposes.

"I think most people that are going to be out there seeking psilocybin are going to be doing it because they're trying to help improve their mental health rather than they're looking for a good time," he said.

Hernandez agreed that there's a desire for the medical-based psychedelic in different communities, such as veterans. He said how big the psilocybin mushroom market could get in New Mexico depends on what the mushrooms could legally be used for.

"On the psychiatric side, I would say demand would be very low, and anything more than a few farms supply would probably be too many to supply them," he said. "But if it's open on a more of a recreational side, which I really wouldn't know how that would look, there could be much higher demand and that would allow for many more farms to exist."

Fien Gretton said psilocybin could have less stigma than cannabis, avoiding "the bad public image of having thousands of dispensaries popping up like mushrooms all over the place." He said it's also a less risky business, with fewer booms and busts, because it's not as money-driven.

"I don't know exactly what the market's going to look like. I know that there is going to be one for sure," he said.

Fien Gretton said he would like to be involved on an advisory panel considering psilocybin, and the state should get feedback from actual mushroom growers about the practicalities of producing it.

He said he could produce a thousand pounds of psilocybin mushrooms a week without a lot of trouble if his business scaled up properly.

"So the question is, if I was going to do that, what's the pathway for getting that product into consumers' hands in a safe, responsible and economically feasible way of doing it?" Fien Gretton said.

Hernandez said he was following a bill last year that died that would've created a psilocybin advisory group that included experts on medicinal plants and psilocybin products. He said that would've influenced his cultivation space more but he is fine stepping back to health experts for the requested study in SM12.

Even if psilocybin isn't legal now, Fien Gretton said people can easily get spores from vendors for scientific purposes, since the illegal compound psilocybin doesn't show up in the mushroom until it grows and matures. He said that'll continue ramping up.

"A lot of businesses are going to be edging closer and closer to providing all of the supplies and services that enable you to grow your stuff at home, but stopping just shy of providing the actual mushrooms themselves," he said.