Colorado HB 26-1325: The Ibogaine Research Pilot Program (2026)

What HB 26-1325 does

HB 26-1325 creates an Ibogaine Research Pilot Program inside Colorado's Behavioral Health Administration (BHA). The BHA can license up to five pilot sites through a competitive application process to study whether ibogaine, a natural psychedelic derived from the West African shrub iboga, is safe and effective for conditions such as PTSD and substance use disorders.

Gov. Jared Polis signed the bill on June 4, 2026, alongside a batch of other legislation. It took effect August 12, 2026. The law was sponsored by Reps. Jarvis Caldwell and Lisa Feret and Sens. Matt Ball and Rod Pelton, and it passed both chambers with bipartisan support.

The stated goal is to generate the safety and efficacy data Colorado regulators need to eventually fold ibogaine into the state's fully regulated natural-medicine program, the same program that already runs licensed psilocybin healing centers. For the substance itself, see the full ibogaine guide. For how it is being studied for addiction specifically, see ibogaine for opioid addiction.

How it fits into Proposition 122

Colorado voters passed Proposition 122, the Natural Medicine Health Act, in 2022. It decriminalized personal possession and use of five natural psychedelics for adults 21+: psilocybin, psilocin, DMT, ibogaine, and mescaline, excluding peyote. It also set up a licensed "natural medicine" healing-center program that could add substances beyond psilocybin over time.

Psilocybin was first in line and has been operating under licensed healing centers since 2023 to 2025. Ibogaine, DMT, and mescaline were always eligible for the Natural Medicine Advisory Board to add, but none had a dedicated regulatory pathway until HB 26-1325. This bill starts moving ibogaine from decriminalized personal use toward regulated availability through a licensed provider.

The five pilot sites

The BHA will select up to five ibogaine pilot sites through a competitive application process. Applicants must show a credible plan for administering ibogaine safely, including medical screening and cardiac monitoring, and a path toward the kind of data federal regulators would eventually want to see.

As of this law's effective date, no sites had yet been licensed or begun treating research participants. The application and selection process comes first. Colorado's currently operating licensed healing centers under Proposition 122 serve psilocybin only.

The Indigenous benefit-sharing requirement

HB 26-1325 requires every pilot-site applicant to submit a benefit-sharing plan for Indigenous communities that have a longstanding, traditional connection to ibogaine and to iboga, the plant it comes from. Advocates elsewhere in the psychedelic-access debate have raised concerns that Western commercialization of plant medicines can sideline the communities that have used and stewarded them for generations. This requirement responds to that concern.

Acceptable benefit-sharing arrangements under the law can include direct financial sharing, collaborative research or data-sharing partnerships, conservation support for iboga habitats, funding for community-identified priorities, cultural or educational exchange programs, and sourcing ibogaine through ethical, sustainable cultivation instead of wild-harvesting.

Facilitator liability provision

The bill also addresses liability for facilitators who administer natural medicine services, including ibogaine, under the state program. A facilitator is not liable for a participant's physical or psychological injury arising from the facilitator's performance or supervision of the session, unless the injury results from the facilitator's intentional misconduct, gross negligence, or a deviation from the recognized standard of care.

In practice, this extends the same liability standard Colorado already applies to licensed psilocybin facilitators under Proposition 122's healing-center framework to the new ibogaine pilot structure.

Also in the bill: cracking down on unlicensed mushroom sales

HB 26-1325 covers more than ibogaine research. Late amendments added criminal language targeting Colorado's gray-market psilocybin operators: the "gifting" and "harm reduction" storefronts that have operated in a legal gray zone since Proposition 122 decriminalized personal use, before licensed healing centers existed everywhere.

The amended bill bars advertising "natural medicine or natural medicine products," bans charging fees for harm-reduction or support services that are really used to conduct a sale, and specifically prohibits retail stores, vendor tables, vendor booths, or other commercial setups that dispense natural medicine for payment. That ban covers online sales and recurring membership fees too. It carves out an exception for genuine harm-reduction work that does not involve transferring the substance itself.

Rep. Lisa Feret, one of the bill's sponsors, told reporters the amendments were meant to clarify advertising, marketing, and responsible use, and to stop promoters from claiming mushrooms cure serious addictions. Colorado's Department of Revenue had already issued cease-and-desist orders against at least one unlicensed facilitator before the bill passed. Attorney Sean McAllister disputed the process: he argued the language arrived at the last minute with little public input, and that it targets educational and microdosing models that charged for support services while gifting psilocybin itself, a common workaround in cities that decriminalized psilocybin before licensed centers opened. See our cities that decriminalized psilocybin guide for how that gray zone developed.

Support and opposition

The ibogaine pilot program drew a mostly favorable, bipartisan response. In House committee testimony, three people told lawmakers that ibogaine treatment pulled them out of the darkest period of their lives. Joy Gribble, a supervisor at Reflective Healing, one of Colorado's first licensed psilocybin healing centers in Fort Collins, called the pilot proposal "responsible" in comments reported by Denver7, and said the state's licensing infrastructure was ready to support it.

Not everyone agreed. Luke Niforatos, executive director of Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), a national group that opposes broader drug-policy liberalization, told Denver7 that ibogaine was "actually like putting a nuclear bomb in your brain," citing its documented cardiac risk. In the House Health and Human Services Committee, the bill advanced with only one dissenting vote, from Rep. Brandi Bradley, who cited safety concerns and cost to the state.

What it does not do

HB 26-1325 does not make ibogaine available to the general public. Access is limited to the licensed pilot sites once they are approved, and even then it is a research and monitored-treatment context. There is no open storefront. Ibogaine also remains a Schedule I controlled substance under federal law, so this state pilot program operates in the same federal-state tension as Colorado's broader Natural Medicine Health Act.

For a state-by-state view of where ibogaine and other psychedelics currently stand, use the legal status by state tool. To find an active, FDA-authorized study, use find a clinical trial.

Colorado vs. Texas vs. Louisiana

Colorado is now the third state, alongside Texas and Louisiana, to fund a state-backed ibogaine or broader psychedelic research program in 2025 and 2026. The three take meaningfully different approaches.

Timeline

• 2022: Colorado voters pass Proposition 122, decriminalizing ibogaine alongside four other natural psychedelics.
• 2023 to 2025: Licensed psilocybin healing centers open under Prop 122. Ibogaine is not yet part of the regulated program.
• 2026 legislative session: HB 26-1325 advances through committee with bipartisan sponsorship.
• June 4, 2026: Gov. Jared Polis signs HB 26-1325 into law.
• August 12, 2026: HB 26-1325 takes effect. The BHA begins standing up the pilot-site application process.