Can you get legal psilocybin therapy in NYC?

The short answer

Psilocybin therapy isn't legal in New York outside a registered clinical trial. Psilocybin and psilocyn are in Schedule I of the state Public Health Law, no agency licenses psilocybin therapists, guides or centers, and under the Penal Law even giving psilocybin away counts as a sale.^{1, 2, 10} As of November 2, 2026, 12 psilocybin or psilocybin-like studies were recruiting at New York sites.³

Your legal options from New York

Psilocybin in a clinical trial

Research is the legal route to psilocybin in New York today. Open studies cover advanced cancer, alcohol and opioid use disorders, depression, trauma and PTSD.³ Our trials directory lists each one with its contacts, the screening steps and the common reasons people are turned away.

Four MDMA studies were also recruiting at New York sites on November 2, 2026, including PTSD at the Bronx VA and bulimia at Mount Sinai, and Mount Sinai and Maimonides in Brooklyn are testing ketamine for depression.³

Spravato and ketamine: what NYC clinics can legally offer

Esketamine, sold as Spravato, was first approved by the FDA on March 5, 2019. Its label covers treatment-resistant depression in adults, alone or with an oral antidepressant, and depressive symptoms in adults with major depression and acute suicidal thoughts or behavior.^{4, 5} Under the FDA's safety program for it, only certified healthcare settings with a prescriber on site can give it. You use the nasal spray there and are monitored for at least two hours for sedation, dissociation and breathing problems, and none goes home with you.⁵ Its label carries a boxed warning about those risks, about abuse and misuse, and about suicidal thoughts and behaviors.⁴

Ketamine itself has been FDA-approved since 1970, but only as an anesthetic, so clinics that use it for depression are using it off-label.⁴ Neither drug is psilocybin.

Traveling to Oregon or Colorado

These are the closest places with licensed psilocybin sessions: the nearest Colorado healing centers are about 1,780 driving miles from Times Square, and Oregon's nearest, in Bend, about 2,787. Our near-New-York guide has the details.

Oregon licenses service centers and facilitators under Measure 109, passed in November 2020. Clients must be 21 or older but "do not need to live in Oregon," and no prescription or referral is needed. You start with a preparation session with a licensed facilitator; the administration session at a center "is the only time a client may purchase and consume psilocybin products." A client can be turned away for thoughts of harming themselves or others, lithium use within 30 days, or a past diagnosis of active psychosis.⁶

Many clients travel. From April to June 2026, Oregon's centers served 1,220 clients, and 291 of them opted out of the state's data reporting. Of the clients whose answers were reported, 525, more than half, gave a home elsewhere in the U.S.⁶ Two 2026 studies looked at the program. In a mystery-shopper study with Mount Sinai and NYU coauthors, researchers posing as prospective clients reached 15 of 22 licensed centers by phone in mid-2025, and the median total they were quoted for the preparation, administration and integration sessions was $1,900. A study of 346 clients, with an NYU coauthor, found 4 (1.2%) had adverse behavioral reactions that needed medical attention.⁷

Colorado's law defines a participant as anyone 21 or older "who receives natural medicine services performed by and under the supervision of a facilitator," and says nothing about residency. The state began taking license applications on December 31, 2024, and the first sessions at licensed healing centers took place in June 2025. On October 30, 2026, it listed 47 approved healing center licenses (12 standard and 35 micro).⁹

Federal law doesn't change at the state line: Oregon's health authority notes psilocybin "is still a Schedule I substance under the federal Controlled Substances Act," and possessing it back in New York is a crime.^{6, 2}

New Mexico, later

New Mexico's Medical Psilocybin Act, signed April 7, 2025, creates a medical program for conditions including treatment-resistant depression, PTSD, substance use disorder and end-of-life care, through New Mexico-licensed clinicians with a state permit. It must start by December 31, 2027. The law doesn't say whether patients must live in New Mexico. The Health Department held a hearing on its proposed patient rules on October 2, 2026, and hadn't posted them as adopted by November 2, 2026.¹¹

What isn't legal: underground guides, ceremonies and retreats

Some people in New York offer psilocybin "ceremonies," retreats or guided sessions, and some call them legal. They aren't: New York licenses no psilocybin facilitators or centers, and the statutes make no exception for ceremonies.^{1, 2}

• The guide. "Sell" in the Penal Law includes "give or dispose of to another," so handing someone psilocybin, even free, is at least a class D felony.²
• The client. Possessing any amount is at least a class A misdemeanor, and heavier weights are felonies; see our penalties guide.²
• The product. No one tests it. New York's drug-checking services can't either: the state says its machine "cannot test organic matter like cannabis or mushrooms."⁸ Our gummies report covers what labs have found in smoke-shop products.

If something goes wrong, call 911. New York's Good Samaritan law, Penal Law 220.78, bars possession charges against anyone who seeks help in good faith for an overdose or other life-threatening emergency; it doesn't cover selling for money or other gain.² In a crisis, call or text 988. Fireside Project's psychedelic peer support line, 62-FIRESIDE, takes calls and texts daily from 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. New York time.¹⁵

What could change: FDA review and Albany's bills

An FDA decision on COMP360. Compass Pathways is filing its synthetic psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression under a rolling FDA review and, as of August 2026, expected to finish in the fourth quarter and launch in the first half of 2027 if approved.¹³ The DEA would then have to reschedule it, a review an April 2026 executive order tells the Attorney General to finish quickly, and New York's health commissioner must follow a federal rescheduling by regulation.^{14, 1} Bills S9852 and A11499 would make the state step automatic.¹² An approval would cover one prescription drug, not mushrooms.

A state medical program. The Medical Psilocybin Act, A2142A and S5303A, would have the Health Department oversee psilocybin treatment for conditions such as treatment-resistant depression, PTSD, substance use disorders, end-of-life care and cluster headaches, starting July 1, 2028. S1801A and A3845A would fund a pilot for veterans and first responders through SUNY academic health centers. Both were still in committee when the 2026 session ended.¹² Our bill tracker follows them, and we covered the May 2026 rewrite.

Federal moves. The same order tells the FDA and DEA to open a Right to Try pathway to psychedelic drugs for eligible patients, and HHS to put at least $50 million toward states with psychedelic programs.¹⁴ New York doesn't have one.