Colorado Gov. Jared Polis must assemble an advisory panel by the end of the month to oversee the decriminalization of several hallucinogens made legal to possess and consume in state-certified healing centers by Proposition 122.
Christopher Utroska is an account manager for Sparkplug, a company that works closely with the cannabis industry. In an interview, he compared and contrasted the decriminalization of cannabis and psilocybin and speculated about how decriminalized psychedelics could foster entrepreneurial opportunities.
This transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
Corker: How much crossover between the cannabis and newly-decriminalized hallucinogen industry do you foresee?
Utroska: A lot of the context that I have with established brands in cannabis, I think are anxiously awaiting this change — the decriminalization and movement towards legalization on the psychedelic side. There are a lot of similarities as far as a business model is concerned, coming from a black market to a gray market into fully legitimate legal use. There’s just a lot of overlap between cannabis and psychedelics, so some companies have been planning for it.
Now, I don’t know exactly what it looks like [for Colorado] in this phase, being that it’s decriminalized versus legal, but there are people ready and interested in starting up larger-scale operations to support whatever the product needs, whether that’s going towards therapeutic or recreational needs.
Corker: Most of the conversation around their decriminalization seems to focus on the mental health aspect. Do you foresee it becoming a recreational industry as well?
Utroska: I think [decriminalization] makes sense to get society familiar and comfortable; there has to be some control, has to be some limits to what’s allowed. The exact same thing happened with cannabis: initially, it rolled out with a medicinal purpose but it has evolved since then towards recreational use. I think that hallucinogens will be similar in that way, the initial rollout. The easiest path [to legalization] will be for the therapeutic side of it, and I’m sure over time that it will evolve to more recreational access.
Corker: Since its legalization in 2014, cannabis sales have topped 13.8 billion dollars. Do you think that the decriminalization of psychedelic mushrooms and additional plant-based psychedelic substances will have the same kind of economic impact that cannabis has had?
Utroska: I think it would be really tough [for psychedelics to have the same impact], honestly. I just don’t think that the psychedelic curious, who have tried it before, or those who have never tried it before but would be open to it once it’s legal [would match the cannabis market]. It’s just not something I see people doing as frequently as they do cannabis or alcohol in their lives. I might be wrong about that. Who knows? Maybe people will find it accessible and find ways to work it into their lives, but it feels like the amount would be a lot more limited, so I don’t think it would achieve the same level of profitability.
The majority of people that are consistently using psychedelics day to day use small doses and use it consistently. But even then, I don’t know. It doesn’t take much to be able to do that. A little goes a long way in that space, and I just don’t see the money hitting the point that cannabis has hit.
Corker: Is there anything you would like to add?
Utroska: I think it’s an exciting time, and I’m hopeful that there will be a practical execution of the rollout [of psychedelics] because I do look at it as an opportunity. I do look at it as an important thing to make available to people that feel they would find benefit from it, whether that be from a therapeutic standpoint or a recreational standpoint. It could be really interesting… How many people are going to get exposure to an experience that they never would have considered? And of those people how many will have been positively impacted? I think the likelihood [of a beneficial impact] is fairly high, as long as we’re being responsible as a society.
