Woodland Park council hears options to regulate natural medicine healing centers under state law

Woodland Park city officials and community members on Jan. 16 discussed how the city might regulate so-called natural medicine healing centers — facilities that would provide psilocybin-assisted sessions — after Colorado’s voter-approved natural medicine law and state licensing programs opened a path for licensed businesses.

City Attorney Betsy Stewart told the council the city cannot ban licensed natural-medicine businesses but can adopt “time, place and manner” rules. “We can't prohibit a facility or a healing center or cultivation or anything in the city. Just by law, we can't,” Stewart said, and she described zoning, distance and operational limits the city can adopt.

The issue arose during a work session that included a presentation from Jason Friesma, a licensed professional counselor who described clinical practices he said have served veterans, first responders and people with treatment-resistant depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Friesma said his plan is to establish a licensed healing center and described screening, preparation, dosing and integration procedures he follows. “My vision … is to create a world where suffering from…