September 15, 2026 — At a public comment hearing tonight, Oregon Health Authority heard what may have been the most unified message in the short history of the state’s psilocybin services program: the proposed fee increases don’t solve the budget shortfall, they make it worse.
For roughly ninety minutes, facilitator licensees, service center owners, veterans, trainers, and advocates testified before hearing officer Britney Hall. Speaker after speaker asked OHA to reject a proposal that would double annual facilitator fees to $4,000, double service center and manufacturer fees to $20,000, raise worker permit fees from $25 to $200, and eliminate reduced-fee tiers entirely.
The numbers that got the hearing’s attention came from facilitator Sam Gross, who also served on the July rules advisory committee. Concerned that OHA was not modeling license attrition, Gross conducted his own survey of 146 licensees. 117 of them — more than 80% — said they would not renew at the proposed rates.
Based on those responses, Gross projected that licensing revenue would fall from just over $1 million to approximately $463,000 — a 56% decrease. “OPS itself acknowledges the risk,” Gross told the hearing. “Your own fiscal impact statement says increased fees may reduce the number of licensees and ‘create a more significant program budget shortfall.’”
Perhaps more troubling, Gross noted that even in a best-case scenario where every licensee renewed and paid double, the fees still would not eliminate the program’s underlying deficit. “If OPS is still underfunded after doubling fees, you would still have to find another way to source or fund the program,” he said. “I question the wisdom of first imposing fees that will drive facilitators and businesses out of the regulated market, reduce access for clients, and potentially reduce the revenue OPS is trying to increase.”
That argument gained additional support when Gary Bracelin, speaking on behalf of the Psilocybin Alliance, cited OHA’s own newly released fiscal modeling. In an attrition scenario, the projected deficit could reach approximately $4.25 million — roughly $360,000 worse than if OHA does not raise the fees at all.
The Human Cost
Behind the financial projections are real people.
Lewis Birds Eye, a crisis intervention professional in his first year as a facilitator, told the hearing he is “seriously considering not renewing my license. Not because I’ve lost faith in this work, but because the cost of remaining licensed is becoming increasingly difficult to justify.”
Gina Graza, a trauma clinician and former lead educator at InnerTrek, said she does not know if she can afford a $4,000 fee because facilitation is not her full-time work. “What will happen is that people who can afford these increases, most likely those connected to big money, will overshadow and leave out small businesses and individual facilitators,” she warned. “If that holds across the program, these fee increases will generate less revenue than doing nothing at all.”
Paul Volk, who is training to become a facilitator and hoping to open a service center, said under the current reduced-fee tier, a facilitator and service center license together cost about $6,600. Under the proposal, with reduced fees eliminated, the same two licenses would cost $25,000. “Nearly four times as much overhead applied before we’ve served a single client,” he said, noting that client demand is already down more than 30% year over year.
Veterans were a recurring theme. Amy Charlesworth, a military veteran who accessed the reduced-fee program for her initial license, urged OHA to preserve some avenue for low-income applicants and veterans. “A lot of military veterans use and rely on these services to get treatment for situations and diagnoses that have been untouched by western modalities that we’ve tried for years and years,” she said.
Jim Yu, co-owner of the Vital Reset service center in Hood River, put it directly: he already tells people who call asking about entering the profession that “it’s probably not a good idea. Because I want to be honest and transparent with them. This is not a business where you can earn a survivable income, which is really sad.”
Melinda Halpern, a licensed professional counselor of 25 years, described completing a ten-month facilitator training at a cost of more than $10,000 to work inside the regulated system rather than underground. “Oregon made a grand gesture by being the first state to allow psilocybin to be used with a structured model,” she said. “To eliminate a highly successful program within three years by adding outrageous facilitator and facility fees not only does a disservice to my profession, but to the residents of Oregon who asked for this opportunity.”
More Than Money
While fees dominated the testimony, several speakers raised alarms about other proposed rule changes.
Amy Charlesworth and Andreas Metz both opposed what they described as a “licensee speech ban” — provisions that would discipline licensees for “promoting or encouraging unregulated activity,” including sharing information about home cultivation or microdosing, and could hold licensees responsible for what others say on their behalf.
Metz testified that he had asked OHA’s compliance team whether a facilitator-authored ebook could trigger discipline. OHA responded by asking whether the book discussed cultivation, production, processing, or use. “That exchange demonstrates the uncertainty facing licensees engaged in lawful speech and commerce,” Metz said, asking OHA to “remove or substantially narrow these provisions.”
Charlesworth added that the rules reach beyond licensed facilities into “what we write, teach, and publish,” without defining terms like “promote” or “encourage.” She cited religious freedom concerns as well: “For many people, psilocybin is a sacrament.”
Several speakers also supported Amy Charlesworth’s request that licensed service centers and facilitators be allowed to help clients prepare psilocybin products for consumption. She described first-time clients as “emotional, nervous, crying. They don’t know what they’re doing,” and said requiring them to fumble through packaging and mixing is “extremely destabilizing and extremely traumatic.”
Charlesworth also opposed a proposed $500 curriculum-change fee for training programs, arguing it would discourage schools from updating material as research evolves, and a rule barring practicum students and site supervisors from acting as client support persons, which she said would remove one of the few hands-on learning avenues available.
What Happens Next
OHA’s hearing officer repeatedly reminded participants that the division would not respond to questions or debate testimony during the hearing. The agency will review all written and oral testimony before finalizing rules.
A second hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, September 16 at 12:00 PM Pacific Time. Written comments are being accepted until 5:00 PM on Monday, September 21 at publichealth.rules@odhsoha.oregon.gov.
The National Psychedelic Association, which has been working with licensees and advocates on this issue since the summer, will continue pushing for transparency, sustainable fee structures, and a program that remains accessible to the Oregonians it was created to serve.
The testimony tonight made the bottom line clear: Oregon’s psilocybin program is working. It has served more than 24,000 people with an adverse-experience rate below 1%. The question is whether OHA will let it survive the cure it is proposing for its budget shortfall.
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