New Mexico Budget Allocates $630,000 for Psilocybin Treatment Access Fund

New Mexico tucked $630,000 into its annual state budget to create a Medical Psilocybin Treatment Equity Fund, a first-of-its-kind allocation that advocates say will ensure low-income and rural patients can access the state's emerging psilocybin therapy program regardless of what they can afford to pay.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed House Bill 2, the state's annual budget, on March 10. The equity fund provision builds on the New Mexico Medical Psilocybin Act passed in 2025, which created the framework for a state-regulated psilocybin therapy program. The Psilocybin Advisory Board is now working through rulemaking on questions of propagation, dosage and administration, research, and training requirements, with state officials expecting the program to launch by the end of 2026.

Denali Wilson, the Healing Advocacy Fund's New Mexico Director of Strategic Support, framed the appropriation as a national benchmark. "New Mexico is creating the nation's first medically integrated psilocybin program because state leaders recognize the potential of this therapy to improve mental health outcomes and reduce future public health costs," Wilson said. "With the investment in this fund, our state leadership is sending a clear message: access to treatment in New Mexico will not be based on ability to pay."

Taylor West, the Healing Advocacy Fund's Executive Director, emphasized the fiscal logic behind the investment. "This investment reflects the belief that improving access to effective treatments can generate enormous public health returns, helping people recover while reducing the long-term costs of untreated mental health conditions," West said.

Rep. Elizabeth Thomson (D-Albuquerque), a House sponsor of the Medical Psilocybin Act, called the creation of the treatment equity fund a "great step forward."

The budget also included an additional $300,000 appropriation to the University of New Mexico for psychedelic-assisted therapy research focused on end-of-life care. Wilson pointed to UNM's involvement as foundational to shaping the statewide program's structure. "To have UNM, our homegrown experts, looking really, really closely at what that care model needs to look like, it's just going to inform the decisions that we make in the structure of the state program in a really meaningful way," she said.

KUNM reported that New Mexico is the first state in the country to allocate funds guaranteeing residents access to psilocybin treatment regardless of income, a claim the Healing Advocacy Fund has also made in characterizing the program as the nation's first medically integrated model of its kind.

Key operational questions remain unanswered as rulemaking continues: which state agency will administer the equity fund, what income or residency thresholds will determine eligibility, and whether the $630,000 represents a one-time appropriation or the start of a sustained funding stream. How the state will define "rural" for purposes of fund access, and how UNM's end-of-life research will interact with the broader program structure, are also still to be determined before the program opens to patients later this year.