SALT LAKE CITY — A bill quietly making its way through the legislative session would allow Utahns to use psilocybin, MDMA and other controlled substances as a mental health treatment.
Sen. Kirk Cullimore's Senate Bill 266 creates a highly-controlled pilot project involving Intermountain Healthcare and University of Utah Health, where patients could try such drugs.
"We have a mental health crisis and there are a lot of people that are seeking help and they’ve just not found the help they needed through traditional methods and traditional medicines," Sen. Cullimore said in a recent interview with FOX 13 News.
Sen. Cullimore said the program would have strict guardrails — even more strict than Utah's highly-regulated medical cannabis program. Patients could only try such drugs under observation from medical professionals in a clinical setting (they can't take it home).
The bill does not explicitly say psilocybin or MDMA, though Sen. Cullimore confirmed those are the drugs being contemplated.
"We didn't want to spell out any particular drug because at this point we’re not looking at creating a new cannabis-type program or anything like that," he said. "We don’t really to want to put the state’s stamp of approval or endorsement on any one of these particular drugs right now but if the health care system believes there’s a reasonable basis it could help a patient? Then this pilot program would allow them to try that."
The Utah Patients Coalition, which backed the medical cannabis ballot initiative and has advocated for psilocybin, said it supported Sen. Cullimore's bill.
"It makes sense to give it to these organizations that have the abilities to treat patients and have the abilities to do research and implement the program in a way that benefits patients," said Desiree Hennessy, the UPC's executive director.
The Utah Department of Health & Human Services said in a recent committee hearing it had no position on the bill, but Dr. Michelle Hofmann, the department's executive medical director and a member of the task force that explored psilocybin use as a therapy, expressed some reservations.
"We stand ready to support Sen. Cullimore in making some modifications that will improve this bill to allow it to be focused in a way that protects the health and safety of Utahns," she said.
The bill won widespread support in the Utah State Senate and passed out of the House Business & Labor Committee on a 7-2 vote. It now goes to the full House of Representatives for a vote.
