Naropa University forced to break ties with its own psychedelic studies program, spawning new independent healing center   ...Middle East

Allen Ginsberg and Ram Dass, who were all, in their own ways, vocal proponents of mind-altering substances — namely LSD and psilocybin — for roughly a decade before landing at the Boulder-based institute in 1974.

But it was only recently that the word “psychedelics” started to make its way into Naropa’s curriculum in a formal way. First, in the Naropa Center for Psychedelic Studies, which housed the Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Certificate, both of which opened in 2022. Then it opened an undergraduate minor in psychedelics, and a psilocybin facilitator training, which launched in the fall.

That formalization has spooked Naropa’s insurers.

In early summer 2024, Naropa’s liability insurer began asking questions about the psychedelics programs. Ultimately, the insurer decided not to offer coverage if the Naropa Center for Psychedelic Studies offered more than academic training — in other words, clinical training — according to Naropa President Chuck Lief. That turned out to be a concern held by the many higher education carriers in the market.

So in December, Naropa shed the Psychedelic Studies Center. The certificate programs and faculty were absorbed into a new, independent entity called the Memoru Center for Visionary Healing Arts, which will add research and clinical care to its offerings, and is aiming to start operating in the spring. 

The Psychedelic Center was originally created as an incubator for an independent entity, so the Memoru Center is a “natural progression” of Naropa’s vision, Lief said. So while the center was always a part of the plan, the rushed timeline was not. Naropa had to cancel and refund a group of students who it accepted into its second class of psilocybin facilitators. 

“In some ways, as a society, we’re making big leaps and bounds. This law that Colorado passed is an example of the very visionary, forward thinking that is going to help a lot of people,” said Sara Lewis, co-founder of the Memoru Center, referring to the legalization of psilocybin by Colorado voters in 2022. “And now we are seeing ways that the basic infrastructure of the law, like insurance companies and liability carriers, may not be quite caught up.”

The emerging psychedelics industry will be watching as the collaborative team from Naropa, along with Boulder-based researchers from Lykos Therapeutics and the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS, get the new facility off the ground. How things proceed is indicative of both the innovative ways that the state is pushing the realm of psychedelics forward, and the roadblocks that clinics and training facilities can expect along the way.

Merging with the state’s framework

In 2022 Colorado voters approved Proposition 122, legalizing psilocybin, or “magic” mushrooms, for medicinal uses, and setting into motion a two-year process to create a regulation and licensing framework. In late November the state finalized its pioneering program, creating two tracks of licensing for people to facilitate psychedelic-assisted therapies.

The first is a clinical facilitator license, which allows licensed professionals in the medical, social work and behavioral health fields, including doctors, psychologists and therapists, to incorporate psychedelics into their practices.

The second track allows those who are not trained in medical or mental health therapy to offer psychedelic-assisted treatments after completing a 150-hour training program, 40 hours of supervised work with participants and 50 hours of consultation. This type of license also requires practitioners to screen patients for higher level health or behavioral risks, like patients who are prescribed psychotropic medicines. In those cases, a patient will be referred to a clinical facilitator.

Both paths accept the transfer of credits from accredited courses, including Naropa’s certifications.

The psychedelic-assisted therapies certificate has historically only been open to licensed medical and behavioral health professionals, or those on the way to licensure. So graduates of the program are well-positioned to apply for the clinical facilitator license.

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The Memoru Center will expand Naropa’s offerings to include certification programs for both licenses, and create a clinical setting where the state’s mandatory supervised clinical hours can take place. This part of certification wouldn’t have been available at the Naropa Center, because psilocybin is still federally illegal, and MDMA was denied approval by the FDA in August. Proposition 122 anticipates legalization of three other plant-based compounds, ibogaine, from the root bark of an iboga tree; mescaline, from cacti; and dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, in 2026.

Lewis said she expects to announce the next set of trainings in the spring, and is hoping that along with the clinical and regular facilitator programs, they will be able to offer an end-of-life certification — psychedelics are often used to alleviate or reframe end-of-life anxiety — and more basic courses about the art, ritual and cultures of psychedelics.

Your friendly neighborhood psychedelic-assisted therapy clinic

“A huge part of what we’re running into in the rollout of psychedelics is the confusion that is this is like cannabis, when in actuality it is much more like health care,” said Lia Mix, CEO of Delphi, a psychedelics consulting group that works with government agencies, health care organizations and financial stakeholders.

Lewis, of the Memoru Center, said that a big part of the new center’s mission will be educating the public about the difference between a “healing center,” the state-designated term for places that provide psychedelic-assisted therapies, and marijuana dispensaries. She noted that some municipalities have started to implement zoning restrictions that mirror the marijuana industry — Breckenridge’s zoning rules, for instance, prohibit healing centers from operating within 1,000 feet of a school or day care center. 

“What people know is a cannabis dispensary, so I think many are mistakenly imagining healing centers to be like that,” Lewis said. “But no one will be able to go into a healing center and purchase mushrooms. It’s much closer to a doctor’s office or a mental health clinic.”

Comparisons to the health care providers are more than just an analogy, though, Mix said. And it would be in the industry’s best interest to start considering its connections to health care. That means focusing on three major areas that insurance and liability providers will be looking for on top of legality, which are: standards of care, accountability and oversight measures, and data collection.

It’s that last piece — data collection — that Elliot Marseille, director of the Collaborative for the Economics of Psychedelics at the University of California, Berkeley, worries could slip through the cracks as clinics start to open.

“In a nascent industry like this, particularly with the controversy that psychedelics has had, I think that clinics should want to collect extensive information on outcomes, (as well as) the characteristics of the patients, both clinical and demographic,” Marseille said.

“I fear that because business is difficult, and right now it’s so hard to keep the lights on, that putting a lot of effort into data collection is not going to be a very high priority.”

Colorado’s guidelines, as they are currently written, require a somewhat vague annual report “concerning administration and implementation” of therapies, that includes “relevant data, as determined by the director and the state licensing authority.”

Clinics are also required to provide data related to law enforcement incidents, adverse health events and behavioral health impacts, among other materials, when requested by the state licensing authority. Individual outcomes are protected as confidential medical data.

A lack of datasets could create to big setbacks for the industry, though, for individuals seeking care and the clinics seeking to provide it, Mix said. Whether an insurance company decides to cover psychedelic-assisted therapies, and whether a healing center will be covered for liability, is — at least in the health care industry — determined by risk levels. 

Lewis, from Memoru, is optimistic that the industries surrounding psychedelics, like liability insurers, will catch up in the next five to 10 years as more states move to legalize psilocybin, and the FDA reconsiders MDMA for federal approval. She thinks it’s essential that therapies can be taught in a university setting, so future medical, social and mental health professionals can incorporate psychedelics into their training.

“I think in the coming years, more and more of this will be integrated into the basic infrastructure,” she said. “Naropa was just a bit too far on the forefront for our insurers to feel comfortable. That’s the kind of place that Naropa is.”

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