New Mexico's Draft Psilocybin Rules Spell Out Who Can Deliver Care. Here Is What Canadian Practitioners Can Learn

On October 2, the New Mexico Department of Health held a public hearing on draft rules for the state's medical psilocybin program, which places psilocybin inside a clinician-certified, state-licensed medical framework rather than a general wellness or adult-use model. The hearing drew roughly 30 speakers and about 80 written comments, and the department is still targeting a December 2026 launch, a full year ahead of the legislated deadline. For practitioners watching how regulators define a qualified psychedelic-therapy workforce, the draft rules are among the most detailed documents published anywhere this year.

Medically reviewed by Jacque Lovely, RN, MN, MBA, PMP, Reg #74334.

What the program is

New Mexico's Medical Psilocybin Act, signed in April 2025, directs the Department of Health to create a program in which psilocybin grown and tested in-state is administered to patients by licensed providers in approved clinical settings. Qualifying conditions named in the legislation include treatment-resistant depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance use disorder and end-of-life care. A nine-member Medical Psilocybin Advisory Board, which must include a tribal enrollee, a veteran and a behavioural health advocate, recommends rules on production, testing and clinical practice.

According to Dominick Zurlo, who directs the department's Center for Medical Cannabis and Psilocybin, the state needs one approved producer, one testing laboratory and three categories of certified providers to open. One producer has been approved; provider permits cannot open until the clinical rules are finalized, which is why the October hearing matters.

Three provider roles, with training hours attached

The proposed rule, 7.35.3 NMAC, separates clinical responsibility into three distinct roles. Certifying clinicians are New Mexico-licensed prescribers with a state controlled-substances registration who determine whether a patient qualifies; they complete an eight-hour didactic module and an evaluation. Practitioners must hold a state licence in therapy, counselling or behavioural health services and complete a 65-hour didactic therapy module (at least one-third in person), ten hours of simulated patient experience, a five-hour practitioner module and a 120-hour practicum. Facilitators work under practitioner supervision, providing peer support and logistical help, and complete a five-hour module plus a 100-hour practicum.

Every practitioner and facilitator must also hold current basic life support, CPR/AED or EMT credentials and HIPAA certification. Continuing education is set at eight hours every two years for certifying clinicians and 20 hours for practitioners and facilitators. Notably, the draft allows waivers and reduced practicum requirements for applicants trained out of state, with deadlines tied to the end of 2027, an acknowledgement that no one in New Mexico has yet been certified and the first providers will likely come from elsewhere.

Two providers in every room

The staffing rules are where the draft becomes most concrete. Individual dosing sessions require at least one practitioner and one facilitator present. Group sessions require one practitioner for every eight patients and one facilitator (or qualified student) for every two patients. The department may waive or reduce these ratios if they create a barrier to access and safety concerns are otherwise addressed.

Several speakers at the hearing asked the department to drop the two-provider requirement, remove the certifying-clinician step, allow telehealth examinations and shorten the 30-day approval window. The draft already permits telemedicine certification, but only when the clinician has examined the patient in person within six months or has reviewed records from, or formally consulted, a clinician who did. The department has committed to weighing the testimony and written comments before finalizing the rules.

The cost conversation practitioners should not ignore

Training will be delivered by third-party educational programs, and the department has said it cannot regulate their tuition. Dr. Lida Fatemi, an internal medicine and hospice physician, estimated the cost at about US$20,000 per facilitator and asked for scholarships. Chris Peskuski, a veteran and Colorado-licensed facilitator, said cost is the biggest barrier to access, with roughly 2,800 eligible veterans already waiting for treatment through a single veterans' organization. Kate Hawke, a trauma therapist helping draft the rules, credited the state with avoiding the licensing-fee model she said has contributed to the closure of about a third of licensed facilities in Oregon.

The most contested provision was unexpected: a requirement that patients receiving at-home therapy in a rented residence obtain their landlord's signed acknowledgement. Thirteen of the 30 speakers objected, including the bill's lead sponsor, Senator Jeff Steinborn, and advisory board chair Ian Dunn, who argued that property ownership is not a clinical qualification.

Why this matters in Canada

Canada has no equivalent program. Legal access to psilocybin for patients remains limited to clinical trials and Health Canada's case-by-case authorization, initiated by a physician, and Alberta became the first province to regulate psychedelic-assisted therapy when it announced its framework in 2022. But the questions New Mexico is working through in public, who certifies the patient, who sits in the room, how many hours of supervised practice a therapist needs, and whether a second trained support person should be mandatory, are precisely the questions provincial colleges and Health Canada will face if a psilocybin product is approved in the coming years.

Three lessons stand out. First, regulators are converging on a layered team model in which a licensed mental-health professional leads and a trained facilitator supports; nurses, psychologists, physicians and therapists with existing licences are positioned for the lead role, but only with specific psychedelic training and supervised practice. Second, the hour counts matter: New Mexico's 200 combined hours of didactic, simulated and practicum training for practitioners is a plausible benchmark for what "adequately trained" could mean in a regulated system. Third, practitioners who can demonstrate recognized, structured training will be better placed to work within whatever framework emerges, including out-of-jurisdiction waivers like the one New Mexico proposes.

These remain draft rules, and the staffing ratios, telehealth provisions and landlord requirement may change before adoption. The direction, though, is clear: medical psilocybin is being built around defined professional roles and documented competence.

Preparing now

ATMA CENA's Advanced Pathways are complete programs that include the Psychedelic Therapy Foundations course as part one, with most coursework delivered online and the KAT Immersive offered in person in Calgary. If you are a healthcare practitioner thinking about where you fit in a regulated psychedelic-therapy team, you can explore the training options at our training page or book a call with a program advisor to talk through which pathway matches your licence and goals.

Sources

1. Department of Health Holds Hearing on Psilocybin Rules. Santa Fe Reporter, 2026.
2. Proposed Adoption of New Rule 7.35.3 NMAC: Patients, Certifying Clinicians, Practitioners, Facilitators, Healing Centers and Educational Programs. New Mexico Department of Health, 2026.
3. New Mexico looking to launch medical psilocybin program a year early amid high interest. The Santa Fe New Mexican, 2025.
4. Alberta to be 1st province to regulate psychedelics for therapy, government says. CBC News, 2022.