Psychedelic therapy centers can open in Avon beginning in August

Therapeutic centers that use psychedelic compounds to treat patients will be able to open in Avon beginning in August.

On Tuesday, Avon finished establishing where and under what limitations natural medicine healing centers can set up shop in town after starting the process in February by temporarily blocking the businesses.

“I think we’ve done good work on this,” said Mayor Tamra Nottingham Underwood.

What are Avon’s rules for natural medicine businesses?

Natural medicine currently refers to the hallucinogenic compounds in psilocybin and psilocin. This will later be expanded as dimethyltryptamine, ibogaine and mescaline are approved for use.

Natural medicine businesses, which the Colorado Department of Revenue licenses, include healing centers, cultivation facilities, product manufacturers and other licensed entities created by the state government in the future.

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At natural medicine healing centers, trained facilitators licensed by the Department of Regulatory Agencies can administer natural medicine services to patients in a three-session course of supervised treatment.

Natural medicine healing centers will be permitted in specific locations in Avon, with explicit limitations on the hours, odor, lighting and storage of materials.

Natural medicine healing centers are permitted to open in Avon’s neighborhood commercial, mixed-use commercial, town center, shopping center, light industrial and commercial zone districts and in planned unit development zoned properties where medical office uses are permitted.

Avon will allow natural medicine businesses to operate seven days per week from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Individual businesses will be responsible for setting their own schedules.

Natural medicine businesses that are not healing centers, including cultivation and product manufacturing facilities, can only open in the town’s light industrial and commercial zone districts, of which there is only one, along the western end of Nottingham Road and Metcalf Road.

History of natural medicine legalization in Colorado

In 2022, Colorado voters approved Proposition 122, which legalized the use and cultivation of natural medicine as an additional tool for mental health services. Sixty-two percent of Eagle County voters were in favor of the measure.

The proposition decriminalized the personal possession, growing, sharing and use of psilocybin and psilocin, but not the sale. Individuals cannot purchase psilocybin or psilocin from natural medicine businesses of any kind for at-home use. All use of psilocybin and psilocin must occur at natural medicine healing centers under supervision by a licensed facilitator, according to the proposition.

The state established further regulations for the use and cultivation of natural medicine in the Natural Medicine Code in 2023.

Colorado’s regulations for natural medicine businesses and healing centers took effect on Oct. 1. Natural medicine healing centers have been able to apply for licenses to open around the state since Dec. 31.

No town can prohibit natural medicine businesses from opening, but municipalities can place restrictions on the time, place and manner of business operations.

In February, the council passed a temporary moratorium blocking natural medicine healing centers, cultivation facilities, product manufacturers and the like from opening in town until the town was able to implement regulations for these businesses.

In June, the council looked favorably upon a version of the ordinance that permitted natural medicine healing centers in the town’s neighborhood commercial, mixed-use commercial, town center, shopping center and light industrial and commercial zone districts. At the time, Town Manager Eric Heil directed Matt Pielsticker, community development director, to add additional areas for natural medicine healing centers in some of the town’s planned unit developments.

Pielsticker added the areas within the town’s planned unit developments that allow medical offices, including the WestGate property on U.S. Highway 6 and Beaver Creek Boulevard, the Riverfront property, Chapel Square and Traer Creek’s Planning Area A, a 40-acre undeveloped stretch of land on the north side of town that will be under construction beginning next summer.

Natural medicine healing centers are prohibited from opening within 1,000 feet of a school, including child care centers, preschools, elementary, middle, junior and high schools or licensed home child care facilities. If a school opens after a licensed natural medicine healing center is already established and operational, however, the business does not need to move.

Town staff also added language to further regulate the facilities’ odor containment. The town already had restrictions on odor, including that natural medicine businesses need to have an air filtration and ventilation system so the odors do not go beyond the facility’s property boundaries.

“Since the packet went out, we’ve had some comments about the odor section, which is a pretty defined section in the ordinance, and so there is some alternative language,” Pielsticker said.

Mayor Pro Tem Rich Carroll said he asked for the more elaborate odor restrictions ahead of the meeting after visiting a multi-unit building that held a marijuana dispensary with an odor that drifted to the other units.

“I just wanted some language that really tightened it up so that if there were multiple businesses together, those odors would be defined to just the … psilocybin part, and not be smelled or anything like that in other units,” Carroll said.

The odor regulations now include specific guidance that in multi-unit buildings, the odors must be “not detectable beyond the unit in which the facility is located.”

The town’s regulations on natural medicine healing centers will go into effect 30 days following the July 22 approval, at which point natural medicine businesses can begin to open in Avon.