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Albany bill for a $5 million veterans psilocybin pilot is rewritten

In January 2026, Albany sponsors rewrote a bill that would pay for psilocybin-assisted therapy for veterans and first responders: A3845A and S1801A now carry a $5 million appropriation, run the pilot through SUNY academic medical centers and drop a western New York residency limit. It's a state-funded route to supervised psilocybin for New York veterans, but it's still waiting for a committee vote.

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Published by the Mushrooms New York desk

Albany, January 8, 2026. Assemblymember Patrick Burke amended A3845, his psilocybin-assisted therapy pilot for veterans and first responders, and sent it back to the Assembly Health Committee as A3845A. The next day Sen. Nathalia Fernandez, whose district covers parts of the Bronx and Westchester, did the same with the Senate version, now S1801A.1, 2 The two amended texts match.3

What changed in the rewrite

The original A3845, filed January 30, 2025, set a fixed number of participants, limited them to people living in "the western region of New York," included veterans' families and people with cluster headaches, and had no money attached.4 The amended version:

  • Opens it statewide. Participants "shall include veterans, first responders and retired first responders," with no regional limit. Families and the cluster headache group are gone.
  • Ties enrollment to results. Instead of a set number, the Health Department would scale enrollment "based on the outcomes of the pilot program and changes to federal laws, rules, regulations, and approvals."
  • Adds SUNY partners. The department would run the pilot with State University of New York academic health centers, which "may include" Upstate Medical University, Downstate Health Sciences University in Brooklyn, Stony Brook University and the University at Buffalo's Jacobs School of Medicine.
  • Works inside federal research rules. The pilot must follow FDA, DEA and institutional review board requirements, including "clinical trial processes, investigational new drug pathways" and Schedule I research licenses, and facilitators must qualify under the federal research protocol a SUNY center uses.
  • Adds money. It appropriates $5,000,000 from the general fund to a new psilocybin assisted therapy pilot program fund under State Finance Law section 99-uu.

Some parts carry over: the pilot ends once the DEA approves psilocybin for medical use, the department reports to the governor and Legislature every two years, and patients, practitioners and facilitators acting under the law are protected from arrest, prosecution and professional discipline under state law. The new text also lets the department build a state-funded training program from the pilot's results. It would take effect as soon as it's signed.3, 4

How it differs from the medical psilocybin bill

This is a funded research pilot for two groups of people. The Medical Psilocybin Act (A2142A and S5303A) would build a standing Health Department program with licensed producers and patient registry cards. Burke and Fernandez also sponsor a third bill, A3775 and S495, that would allow medical use of psilocybin with certified facilitators and set up a psilocybin and MDMA therapy grant program.5 All of them are listed on our bill tracker.

On April 20, 2026, Assemblyman Brian Maher announced his support for A3845A in a release that quoted Ulster County's director of veteran services praising the "bipartisan legislation."6

What it means for veterans in New York today

Until a bill like this passes, the legal route to psilocybin in New York is a clinical trial. The James J. Peters VA Medical Center in the Bronx is a site for 2 of the studies in our New York trials directory. Outside a trial, psilocybin is a Schedule I drug under New York law,7 and our therapy guide covers the treatments that are legal now.

What happens next

  • Both bills are in the Health committees with no votes recorded. The last actions were the January 8 and 9 amendments.1, 2
  • The 2025-2026 session ends with 2026. To keep going, the sponsors would refile in the 2027-2028 session under new numbers, as they did after the 2023-2024 session, when the pilot was A8349 and S7832.1
  • If it became law, the Health Department would write rules and sign up SUNY partners before anyone could enroll.3
  • A federal executive order signed April 18, 2026 tells the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health to put at least $50 million toward partnerships with states "that have enacted or are developing programs" for psychedelic drugs.8

Sources

  1. Assembly Bill A3845A, 2025-2026 session: sponsors, actions and earlier versions. New York State Senate, checked November 2, 2026.
  2. Senate Bill S1801A, 2025-2026 session: sponsors and actions, and Senate District 34. New York State Senate, checked November 2, 2026.
  3. A3845A bill text (same as S1801A). New York State Legislature, January 2026.
  4. A3845 original bill text. New York State Legislature, January 30, 2025.
  5. Assembly Bill A3775, 2025-2026 session. New York State Senate, checked November 2, 2026.
  6. Maher supports legislation to establish psilocybin-assisted therapy pilot program for veterans and first responders. Office of Assemblyman Brian Maher, April 20, 2026.
  7. Public Health Law section 3306, Schedule I(d)(18). New York State Senate, checked November 2, 2026.
  8. Executive Order 14401, Accelerating Medical Treatments for Serious Mental Illness, section 3. Federal Register, 91 FR 21709, April 22, 2026.

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Reported and checked by the Mushrooms New York desk. Every figure on this page links to its source. If something is wrong or out of date, tell us and we'll correct it in the open, as our editorial standards describe. Mushrooms New York is published by the team behind My Mushroom Dispensary, an online shop. We sell no advertising.