Jason Blevins
Outdoors/Business Reporter
Sneak Peek of the Week
A 50-state laboratory for psychedelic medicines
Renowned mycologist Paul Stamets outlined the history of psilocybin mushrooms at the Psychedelic Science 2025 conference at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver on June 20. (Jason Blevins, The Colorado Sun)“Psilocybin should be free for every human on the planet.”
— Renowned mycologist Paul Stamets
22
Number of states with pending or existing legislation allowing some form of psychedelic-assisted therapy
The federal government does not appear ready to pick up the reins and guide the growing wave of psychedelic therapies evolving across the country.
So that leaves the states — led by Oregon and Colorado — forging the first-ever regulations that allow people to use psychedelics such as psilocybin, ibogaine and MDMA to treat mental health and addiction issues.
With nearly two dozen states weighing legislation to deploy and study psychedelic-assisted therapies and Colorado and Oregon rolling out pioneering psychedelic regulatory systems, the U.S. is a policy laboratory testing widely different approaches to uncovering the healing potential in long-maligned psychedelics.
The role of states was a hot topic at the second Psychedelic Science conference in Denver last week, a five-day gathering of scientists, clinicians, entrepreneurs, analysts and experienced psychedelic users. Hosted by the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS, the event drew more than 4,000 people to what is billed as the largest psychedelic confab in the world.
While the federal government last year balked at giving final approval to the use of MDMA for treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, the feds seem to be open to additional research and data coming from states that allow psychedelic-assisted therapies for all sorts of mental and behavioral health issues.
“I think these state programs are really going to be used to inform federal policy,” said Ismail Lourido Ali, the interim co-executive director and the head of policy for MAPS.
Lawmakers in 22 states are studying legislation that would allow for some form of psychedelic medicine to treat a variety of behavioral and mental health issues.
But the federal government in the Controlled Substances Act lists most of the medicines promoted by states as treatments for a host of ailments as having “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.” The list of Schedule I substances banned in the U.S. includes ibogaine, LSD, marijuana, mescaline, peyote, psilocybin and a wide swath of chemical variations of dimethyltryptamine, or DMT. All those psychedelic substances are being researched today as possible treatments for a number of mental health issues.
A panel of lobbyists and attorneys advocating for reform of state laws around psychedelic medicines agreed that research gathered in Colorado, Oregon, Texas and Utah can help sway federal laws. Their talk, looking at how the next iteration of psychedelic state policy might take shape, addressed the need to couple therapeutic use with decriminalization and how synthetic variations of natural medicines can play a role in therapeutic care and research.
“We are learning so much from Oregon and Colorado, and I think that it’s hard to overstate how valuable that is,” said Jared Moffat, a policy director for a political action committee called New Approach, which has promoted campaigns to make psychedelic substances legal in several states. “A lot of state regulators are doing this work in the real world and it’s no longer hypothetical. So the lessons we are getting are really specific. You learn by doing … and I would hope that those lessons lead to future improvements across the country.”
Barine Majewska, a pioneering psychedelics attorney with Denver’s Vincent LLP firm, calls the dual track in Colorado — with medical clinicians and licensed non-medical facilitators — “the raw milk argument.” If you want to buy homogenized, safer milk, it’s ready at the grocery. If you want raw, unpasteurized milk, there are ways to research dairy providers and go get your own.
Consumer education with data collected by states, Majewska said, “can pull people out of the dogma” that surrounds psychedelics.
For example, in New York, proposed legislation around psilocybin would not only allow for psychedelic-assisted therapy, but individuals could possess and use the substance after taking a short education course.
“I think if you are going through a legislature without a ballot, you really have to be safety focused,” said Allison Hoots, an attorney and director of Sacred Plant Alliance, which supports the religious use of psychedelics. “Some of these substances are going to freak the legislators out, so if you can focus on what achieves safety but also gives people an opportunity to choose between recreational and regulated access … you can strike a balance between something that feels safe and regulated by the government but also empowers people to use it on their own.”
> Click over to The Sun next week to read this story
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Breaking Trail
X Games debut of AI judging sparks creation of Boulder-based AI platform for all judged sports
Maddie Mastro airs out of the superpipe during the women’s finals at the Winter X Games on Jan. 22, 2022, at Buttermilk in Aspen. (Kelsey Brunner/The Aspen Times via AP)“It would be like AI judging different art.”
— Tom Wallisch, pro freeskier and live event commentator
$11 million
Seeding funding for The Owl AI, a Boulder-based platform to add AI perspective to judged sports events.
As part of his overhaul of the 30-year-old X Games franchise, Jeremy Bloom deployed AI judging for the first time ever at the Winter X Games in Aspen in January.
The technology, developed with Google Cloud and anchored in decades of action sports video, helped judges in their scoring. It went so well that X Games CEO Bloom — who is calling the AI judge “The Owl” — this week launched a new AI venture out of Boulder that he hopes will be the platform for fairness and transparency in all judged and refereed sports.
“I think everyone wants more objectivity as it relates to scoring and judging,” said Bloom, the Loveland-raised Olympian turned entrepreneur whose plans for the summer and winter X Games includes the first global league and team format. “The way the technology showed up in Aspen was a glimpse into the future of sport.”
The new Owl AI company announced Wednesday is backed by $11 million in seed funding led by tech venture capital firm S32. Josh Gwyther, the former head of AI Solutions Architecture at Google, is the startup’s CEO.
Bloom knows the grumblings of athletes over judging. It can be unpredictable at times, repeating a common refrain from athletes in nearly all sports. Bloom pointed to recent assertions that NFL referees were favoring the Kansas City Chiefs, which mirrored decade-old claims that snowboarding judges seemed especially fond of halfpipe icon Shaun White, who scored a first perfect 100 in the 2012 X Games Superpipe.
“All these athletes have had questionable judging in their career. I think everybody is excited about having technology bring accuracy to the X Games,” said Bloom, who will roll out The Owl AI judging later this month at the Summer X Games in Salt Lake City and then he wants to see the technology in other judged sports — like gymnastics and figure skating — in the coming months.
The new AI analysis is not going to replace judges, Bloom said. It will complement their work, not unlike the decade-old video technology that accurately delivers height statistics to halfpipe judges.
During the Winter X Games snowboard superpipe contest Jan. 23, commentators asked The Owl AI to make predictions for the contest after watching the men practice.
Based on its analysis of practice, the AI computer predicted Australian snowboarder and four-time Olympian Scotty James would take gold, followed by Japan’s Yuto Totsuka and Ayumu Hirano. After an hour of playoff and finals competition, the podium mirrored the computer’s prediction, with the boxing-gloved James taking his fourth consecutive X Games medal with the first triple cork in X Games competition.
It’s not just about judging either. The AI systems can generate their own live commentary in a variety of languages, offering viewers in dozens of countries coverage in their native tongues.
It would be prohibitively expensive to deploy dozens of native-speaking event broadcasters, Bloom said, and the AI narrators will know the athletes’ history “better than the humans.”
“It knows their backgrounds, when they landed on the scene and it uses its own brains to think and commentate,” he said. “This will deepen the fan experience globally.”
The Owl AI — which will be based in the X Games headquarters off Pearl Street in Boulder — has been built with the help of athletes and judges as well as top AI thinkers like Gwyther.
Gwyther anticipates different levels of AI commentary as well, with variations based on the viewer’s knowledge of the sport. For example first-time X Games watchers could dial up commentary that explains the athleticism and tricks in more basic terms, while veterans of the show could choose more expert perspectives.
Expert commentary appealing to in-the-know viewers often makes assumptions about basic knowledge, which can be off-putting for first-timers venturing into the scene. The lingo and speed of the trickery can be disorienting for new arrivals and the Bloom-led expansion of the X Games brand relies on hooking lots of first-time viewers.
“We are not trying to eliminate human commentary, only augment,” Gwyther said. “Newcomers can have a commentator who is introducing them to the sport and trying to give them a better understanding.”
Tom Wallisch, a legendary pro freeskier whose Olympic commentary provided invaluable insight into ski superpipe and slopestyle events, watched the AI judging of the Winter X Games closely. He wonders if a computer can pick up some of the nuance in the athletic contests.
“It’s hard in our sports to quantify the style and finesse elements of some riding,” he said. “I don’t know if AI could ever judge it perfectly. It would be like AI judging different art.”
> Click over to The Sun to read this story
The Playground
Mountain Villagers resoundingly reject LLC voting rights
Voters in Mountain Village this month rejected a proposal to allow voting by nonresident owners whose homes are owned by LLCs or trusts, not individuals. (Kelsey Brunner, Special to The Colorado Sun)“The folks who were most vocal on this issue did not vote in this election.”
— Mountain Village manager Paul Wisor
1,460
Number of properties owned by LLCs and trusts in Mountain Village, which has 1,100 full-time residents
Mountain Village voters overwhelmingly rejected a controversial plan to allow voting by nonresident homeowners whose properties are listed under LLCs or trusts.
The community of vacation mansions and workforce apartments above Telluride incorporated in 1995 with a rare rule that allowed nonresidents to vote in local elections. It is the only municipality in Colorado — and one of only a handful in the country — that allows nonresidents to vote.
The town board last year decided to ask voters to consider an amendment that would expand voting to owners of LLCs and trusts that own homes in the resort town.
The proposal — a first for Colorado — was contentious, with locals fearing wealthy absentee owners would seize control of the town.
“We are sort of charting new territory here,” said Mountain Village Mayor Marti Prohaska at a June 2024 council session where the amendment was first discussed.
Mountain Village voters cast 411 ballots in the June 24 election. That’s out of 998 ballots issued to residents and property owners. And Question 1, establishing voting rights for nonresident homeowners whose properties are held in LLCs and trusts, failed 253 to 156. (A nearly 100-vote win is a landslide in Mountain Village, where, for the third election in a row, a town council candidate won their seat by a single vote.)
The ballot question addressed a common lament for mountain town homeowners whose property taxes pay for a bulk of local services. But if those owners are not residents of Colorado, they cannot vote. It’s part of the trade-off for owning mansions in mountain towns. Except for Mountain Village, which has a population around 1,100 full-time residents.
The idea in Mountain Village was that more wealthy owners are moving assets into trusts and companies that limit liability and can ease the transfer of those assets between generations. Those owners were asking for a chance to vote like their nonresident neighbors.
About 1,160 homes in Mountain Village are owned by people using their names and about 1,260 properties are owned by LLCs. Another 200 are owned by trusts. The average home in Mountain Village sells for $2.2 million, which is double the average price five years ago, reflecting a similar price increase in Colorado’s high country since the pandemic.
While it may appear that there was a rare alignment between local residents and second-home owners in Mountain Village, it’s important to note that the people who were really driving this proposal — people with homes owned by companies and trusts — could not vote.
“They wanted to be able to vote like their other second-home owner peers and they were not able to participate,” said Mountain Village Town Manager Paul Wisor. “The folks who were most vocal on this issue did not vote in this election.”
> Click over to The Sun to read this story
Public lands sale plan turns a diverse chorus of advocates for outdoor recreation, conservation and rural economies into a choir
Roads wind on the high desert plateau at the Grand Valley OHV open area, Aug. 24, 2022, in Grand Junction. The municipal recreation area was included in a map for a “Freedom City” for more than 350,000 residents built on public lands. (Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun)“When politicians threaten access to those lands, voters will always speak with one voice.”
— Jennifer Rokala, director of the Center for Western Priorities
The last week has seen an online uprising in support of public lands that has actually shifted a seemingly unwavering senator’s commitment to sell publicly owned acres.
In the days after Utah Sen. Mike Lee’s amendment to the Senate reconciliation bill calling for the mandatory sale of Forest Service and BLM lands, a sort of Million Man March for public lands emerged. The upswell of opposition was not just Democrats and conservation groups opposed to Republican Lee’s proposal. It was hunters and anglers. Two-person outdoor startups and global brands. Motorized trail travelers and wilderness hikers. Small town mayors and big state governors. Athletes of all stripes alongside ranchers and farmers.
This wasn’t a MAGA backlash. It was a full-throated response from a diverse community who has slowly assembled in the past decade around outdoor recreation, protection of open spaces and a recognition that wild spaces keep us whole.
For too long that community spoke in a cacophonous flood of often discordant demands. This last week has seen that community become a choir.
And the song was loud. It toppled Lee’s plan. The Utah senator — who pushed his plan to sell as much as 3.3 million acres of federally managed land so communities could build housing near population centers — posted on X on June 23 that “Americans have spoken. Hunter nation has spoken. I’ve listened and made substantial changes.” Lee shed his plan to sell Forest Service land and reduced the amount of BLM land the government could sell to acreage within five miles of a city. Senate rule makers decided the land-sale proposal was such a diversion from typical budget amendments that it would require 60 votes to pass.
Now it appears Lee’s audacious plan is dead. It never really had legs. The idea that bitcoined investors would build tech-hub “Freedom Cities” — including about 350,000 new residents on the Bookcliff mesas above Grand Junction and Fruita! — is laughable in Colorado, where density is needed, but despised. Even when land is delivered to communities, it can take decades to build anything. (Summit County acquired 45 acres of Forest Service land for housing in 2016 and the project is stalled in contention.) Even in urban Western Slope locations zoned for housing, plans for worker housing are often dogged by lawsuits and vitriolic campaigns.
But the political push to grind down the federal government’s expanse of public lands remains very much alive. The Forest Service wants to overhaul a Clinton-era rule that prohibits new road construction in untrammeled spaces. The Antiquities Act is in the crosshairs of many politicians, with expectations that President Trump will soon use the venerable act to downsize national monuments created and expanded by his predecessors.
Jennifer Rokala, the director of the Center for Western Priorities, said the pushback on Lee’s proposal to sell public lands was “welcome but unsurprising” and reflective of national polls showing Americans of all political stripes united behind public lands.
“Every time pollsters ask about selling public lands, voters are crystal clear that it’s a red line for them,” she said. “The same goes for eliminating or removing protections on our national monuments. Whether you’re a hunter, hiker, climber, or bird-watcher, public lands are integral to life in the West. When politicians threaten access to those lands, voters will always speak with one voice.”
> Click over to The Sun on Sunday to read this story
— j
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