Connecticut's legislature has sent SB 191 to Gov. Ned Lamont (D), a bill that would overhaul an existing psychedelic-assisted therapy pilot program covering psilocybin and MDMA treatment. The House passed it 122-27 on Wednesday; the Senate had approved it unanimously the prior month. The Joint Committee on Public Health sponsored the measure.
Under current law, the program is limited to military veterans and first responders in clinical trials. SB 191 would repeal and replace that statute, opening eligibility to any adult 18 or older who meets clinical criteria established by the institutional review board of the administering medical school. The bill mandates the state “establish, within available appropriations, a psychedelic-assisted therapy pilot program, to be administered by a medical school in the state,” providing qualified patients with “MDMA-assisted or psilocybin-assisted therapy as part of a research program approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration.”
It also removes language that would have ended the program upon DEA or successor-agency approval of psilocybin or MDMA, and strikes an outdated provision requiring the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services to launch it by January 2023.
Rep. Cristin McCarthy Vahey (D) called the bill “critically important,” citing President Donald Trump’s executive order last month accelerating psychedelic therapeutic access and subsequent federal moves to expedite research. “If the fast track is successful and these drugs are approved, our study will end, making us effectively unable both to continue the study and losing the benefit of the investment we’ve already made as a state—but in addition making us ineligible for those federal matching funds,” she said. She also cited recruitment difficulty under the current narrow program; the target cohort is 50 participants. Rep. Nicole Klarides-Ditria (R) and Rep. Dave Yaccarino (R)—who had voted against the original program—also supported the bill.
Connecticut lawmakers sent Lamont a separate bill this session addressing cannabis THC potency limits. A bill to permit qualifying medical marijuana patients to use cannabis at hospitals, nursing homes, and hospices received a committee hearing but did not advance. Last year the House passed a psilocybin decriminalization bill for adults—the third consecutive session for such a measure—after the Senate failed to act in 2023 and the Judiciary Committee approved a version in 2024. Lamont signed a 2022 budget bill that included provisions for psychedelic-assisted treatment access.
