When Jonathan Dalton first heard about psychedelic therapy, it sounded like a “bunch of hippie drugs” for “hippie veterans.”

As a Navy SEAL with a 23-year career, Dalton began to suffer from depression and anxiety and was looking for reprieve. Through the VA, he was prescribed SSRIs, drugs used to treat depression and anxiety, but they didn’t work.

Dalton started researching psychedelic-assisted therapy after it was recommended by another veteran. He learned it had helped many veterans like him, but he was skeptical that it would help. Still, he decided to try, so Dalton went to Mexico where psychedelics are legal and had a life-changing experience.

“The results, quite frankly, were absolutely profound,” he said. “I never found peace the way that I found there.”

After his treatment, he came back to the United States and continued his integrative therapy sessions, where he was able to process things differently.

“I was amazed that this was essentially a cure,” he said.

Now, the Reno resident hopes to help others with mental health conditions by starting a path toward legalizing access to psychedelic therapy in Nevada.

Dalton, president and legislative policy adviser of Nevada Coalition for Psychedelic Medicines, alongside Executive Director Kate Cotter and other advocates, are pushing for increased access in the next legislative session starting in February.

With the help of two Democratic legislators, they plan to introduce two bills: one that would reduce penalties for possession of psilocybin, or magic mushrooms, and a second one that would authorize a pilot program of psychedelic-assisted therapy, eventually leading the state down the path to legalization, according to Annette Magnus, a lobbyist pushing the bills on behalf of the coalition.

“For both bills, it’s still very much in the brainstorming phase,” she said.

In 2023 during the last legislative session, the coalition passed Senate Bill 242 with the help of legislators Sen. Rochelle Nguyen and Assemblyman Max Carter. While it was originally intended to decriminalize the adult possession of four ounces or less of magic mushrooms, it instead created a working group that was tasked with researching the therapeutic use of certain psychedelics and come up with a report to be presented ahead of the next session.

The group, made up of neurologists, legislators, neuroscientists, law enforcement and advocates including Dalton and Cotter, examined various entheogens to determine which ones may be beneficial for therapeutic use in improving mental health.

It reviewed federal, state and local laws and regulations on the issue, examined what other states and cities have done and reviewed the ongoing research into the therapeutic use of the medicines, Dalton said.

During the group’s meetings, it heard from experts as well as veterans who experienced the benefits of psychedelic therapy.

Dalton hopes the report, which will be released in December, will spark a conversation in Nevada and help provide legislators information ahead of the legislative session.

The bills

Legislation is still being developed and will have more details after the working group’s report is published. The Nevada Coalition for Psychedelic Medicines does not seek to make psilocybin legal in the same way marijuana is in Nevada; there won’t be a shroom store next to a cannabis dispensary, Dalton said.

“We want to make sure that this is supervised,” Magnus said. “We want to make sure this is done in a medical setting, and we want to make sure that there’s guardrails in place, because these are very powerful medicines.”

Back in the day, people were told their brains would be scrambled if they were on drugs, “so what we’re really trying to do is change the narrative,” Magnus said.

This is something that is medicinal and people need to take seriously, she said.

“We’re talking about mental health and we’re talking about addiction here, we’re talking about potentially saving lives with this medicine,” she said.

Legislators’ efforts

Sen. Nguyen and Carter are planning to carry the bills, according to Magnus.

Carter, who previously shared his firsthand experience of undergoing ketamine therapy — the only legal psychedelic in Nevada — after his wife died, has been studying what other pilot programs across the country have looked like. The closest one he found is in Utah, conducted by Intermountain Healthcare.

“If a program is palatable and functioning in conservative Utah, we should make something similar work here,” he said.

Carter thinks psychedelic therapy helps treat depression while also helping people find the will to live again.

“Unlike anti-depressants that leave somebody numb, just kind of existing, it helps people rediscover purpose and rediscover the joy in life again,” Carter said.

How it works

Over 30 years of research has shown psychedelics work across a number of conditions, including anxiety, depression, PTSD, OCD, addiction, eating disorders and cluster headaches, Cotter said.

The psilocybin’s molecular structure is nearly identical to serotonin, so it can modulate certain serotonin receptors to have the net effect of increasing neuroplasticity and allowing the brain to repattern, she said.

When a psychedelic is introduced, it relaxes those neural grooves, and you’re able to re-pattern, Cotter said.

With psychedelic assisted therapy, the patient is in a controlled environment with two therapists, and the event lasts six to eight hours, Dalton said.

After the psychedelic treatment takes place, the patient is still in the neuroplastic state, so when the patient goes back to talk therapy, they can ingrain the lessons and changes deeply, Cotter said.

People with a major depressive disorder or treatment resistant depression who undergo psychedelic assisted therapy will have either one or two doses of psilocybin and will experience lasting effects from six months to a year, Cotter said. Like any medication, it isn’t for everyone, Cotter said. But it is much safer than alcohol, and unlike common antidepressants that need to be taken daily, it has lasting effects.

“When used in a responsible setting, it is incredible, because they take immediate effect,” Cotter said.

Contact Jessica Hill at jehill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @jess_hillyeah on X.

Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify how psychedelics increase neuroplasticity.