Colorado
Policy Landscape
In 2019, Denver voters passed a ballot decriminalizing possession of psilocybin.
In 2022, Colorado became the first state in the nation to legalize the personal possession of botanical psychedelics, including psilocybin, through ballot Proposition 122. Separately, it also tasked two agencies with creating rules for a regulated market of professional psilocybin services.
Crime
Colorado is one of the few states to release crime statistics that include drug-related incidents by type of drug. The charts related to crime in this tab are sourced from the state’s uniform crime reporting database.
Hallucinogen-Related Drug Crimes
Source: Colorado Crime Stats
There has been a general downward trend of total hallucinogen-related crimes in Colorado since 2019, with a brief uptick in crime in 2021.
Public Health
There has been a slight downward trend in the percentage of hallucinogen-related hospitalizations since 2019, with a brief uptick during the 2020 pandemic. Total hospitalizations related to hallucinogens in 2023, the year after Proposition 122, were lower than in 2020.
Hallucinogen-Related Hospital Incidences
As % of drug and alcohol-related incidences
Source: Colorado Hospital Association (not public)
Methodological note: This data represents associated drugs at the time of the crime report (not necessarily followed by an arrest), filtered by 'other hallucinogen' type of drug. DUI represents Driving Under the Influence. Total drugs include all arrest types for all Colorado counties. Our data filters this data by 'other hallucinogen,’ which includes non-LSD psychedelics. DUI represents Driving Under the Influence. Total drugs include all arrest types, for all Colorado counties.
The Colorado Hospital Association collects a non-public, proprietary dataset of hospital incidences and makes it available for purchase to organizations that meet its data retention guidelines. In response to a request from Reason Foundation, the association returned a dataset of all drug-related incidences broken down by drug type by year. We display percentages, rather than total counts, because there was only a significant policy change related to hallucinogens in 2023 in Colorado, along with a nationwide increase in psychedelic use, generally. The proportion of hallucinogen-related of all alcohol and drug-related incidents better isolates the effect of the policy reform. For total counts, email psychedelics@reason.org.
Colorado Interviews Distribution
In addition to uniform crime statistics, Reason Foundation conducted interviews over email and phone with media representatives from law enforcement and hospital organizations in the ten largest jurisdictions. Below, we display the percentage of responses that indicated whether representatives believed there was an increase or decrease in crime.
What I can share is that anecdotally, psilocybin has not been a significant law enforcement issue in Denver either prior to or following the passage of Proposition 122.
- The Denver Police Department -
Methodological note: Public safety and health organizations are not cleanly separated into similar jurisdictions. For instance, a Sheriff's office may oversee a county that includes a large city. Denver is both a city and a county. Many organizations were unresponsive, so, for instance, we reached out to the police department of Colorado Springs, which is in the large county of El Paso. Being flexible on jurisdiction type allowed us to maximize the number of responses, rather than rely on a strict standard of jurisdiction type, such as only including a jurisdiction if had a police department and that department was responsive. Also, hospital networks can include many different jurisdictions. For details for every jurisdiction and organization we contacted, email Reason Foundation staff at psychedelics@reason.org.