Welcome and Introduction of Ean Seeb
Lia Mix: Welcome to Delphi’s September Insight Session. I’m Lia Mix, CEO of Delphi, and I’m excited to speak with someone I appreciate and respect tremendously, Ean Seeb. Ean has spent nearly two decades at the intersection of emerging industries, regulation, and public policy in Colorado.
He got his start in medical marijuana by co-founding Denver Relief, one of the state’s first licensed dispensaries, and later Denver Relief Consulting. He advised cannabis businesses and lawmakers across the country and helped build two of the largest cannabis companies in the world today.
He served two terms as board chair of the National Cannabis Industry Association, then the industry’s largest trade association. In 2019, he joined Governor Jared Polis’s office as special advisor on cannabis. People sometimes affectionately call him Colorado’s “drug czar,” but that is not an official title.
His portfolio has since expanded to include Colorado’s Natural Medicine Program. Today, he is one of the state’s, if not the world’s, leading voices on how psychedelic policy moves from a ballot initiative into law and practice, including the new ibogaine research pilot under House Bill 26-1325. Ean, it’s great to have you here.
Ean Seeb: Thank you for having me. That’s quite an introduction.
Lia: I’m not quite finished, because I always like to add a personal note, and this one is literally close to home. I’ve lived in Colorado for three years, so I get to experience a jurisdiction with more progressive drug policies, especially around psychedelics and allowing them to be used as healing medicines. This is personal, and I’m a fan. I think it’s going well, and it’s one of the reasons Colorado is a wonderful place to live.
Before we came on camera, I said this feels like a moment to celebrate how much you’ve accomplished in moving these policies forward in a safe and healthy way for the people of Colorado. We’re excited to have you here and ask you questions.
Ean: I’m thrilled to be here. It’s an honor to be in this role and to have the opportunity to help improve the quality of life for people in Colorado and those coming from around the country and the world to experience these sessions and the freedoms we have.
Lia: Before we get into those questions, I want to acknowledge something I’ve observed during the time we’ve known each other. We haven’t always seen eye to eye; we’ve approached things from different angles. But I’ve respected how you listen and sit deeply with other people’s opinions when developing public policy. That is desperately needed in politics today and among people serving the public. Thank you for that.
Ean: I’ve learned a lot in this role, including how to engage stakeholders. Understanding and adapting your preconceived notions is part of being a policy advisor.
Building the System After Proposition 122
Lia: Stakeholder engagement has been a big part of this, going back to Proposition 122 in 2022. It decriminalized psilocybin, DMT, ibogaine, and non-peyote mescaline. The state then spent the next couple of years building the regulatory framework.
Could you walk us through that process? What did building the system after the vote teach you that you couldn’t have known going in?
Ean: This was a ballot initiative, and it required enacting legislation. We tracked the vote, and once it passed in November 2022, we immediately set up meetings with the agencies.
As the initiative was written, one agency was responsible for the vast majority of the work. We brought other agencies into the fold to engage in those conversations. Unlike marijuana, this wasn’t a constitutional amendment, which gave us considerable freedom to work with the legislation and the initiative. We brought in the Department of Revenue, the Department of Regulatory Agencies, and the Health Department, each with a specific role.
Then we identified stakeholders. Groups such as New Approach PAC and the Healing Advocacy Fund had championed the initiative. There were also people focused on decriminalization, Indigenous and tribal partners, law enforcement, hospitals, schools, and mental health groups such as Mental Health Colorado.
We also needed legislative sponsors. Just because the Natural Medicine Health Act passed didn’t mean it automatically became a law. We had to go in and implement it. We needed to determine which legislators would be ideal and who would volunteer to do it. We were fortunate to find a champion in then-Senate President Steve Fenberg, who went to work bringing on other sponsors, including Judy Amabile. Both were wonderful to work with throughout the process.
Then came meetings, lots of meetings: legislators, stakeholders, lawyers, the attorney general’s office, and more lawyers. We sat down and drilled into what the initiative said, what agencies could do, and what they felt comfortable doing. There was a lot of back-and-forth within that system.
I had worked on the business side of cannabis, never the policy side. There was a lot to learn because I had never done this exercise from this side before. What did it teach me that I couldn’t have known? I learned almost every part of the process along the way, apart from my experience as a citizen advocate fighting for something I believed in 15 years earlier.
Lia: It’s interesting to hear how those agencies had to become involved. We’re now seeing more coordination at the federal level, and we know that coordination is critical to the success of new policies.
You must also have brought lessons from the cannabis industry. What informed the natural medicine policy, and what were you trying to avoid?
Lessons From Cannabis Regulation
Ean: We learned a lot about what to do and what not to do. I’m fortunate that many colleagues I work with now are people I worked with in cannabis. They were previously my regulators, and now I have the opportunity to work alongside them. That gave me a chance to see the process.
Some of the same people at the Department of Revenue who regulate marijuana are the chief regulators for natural medicine. That’s just one agency. The Department of Regulatory Agencies regulates facilitators and training schools, while the Health Department works with the Department of Revenue in certifying testing laboratories. The Health Department also certifies cannabis testing laboratories, so I had overlap with that staff too. [Correction from Ean after recording: the Health Department certifies laboratories; the Department of Revenue regulates them. In the recording, he described the Health Department as regulating them.]
One important lesson was separating state taxes from Section 280E [the federal tax provision discussed here that restricts ordinary business deductions]. That’s the onerous tax burden under which people distributing or trafficking a Schedule I substance don’t get traditional business deductions. Colorado follows the federal government’s tax approach: if you owe federal tax, you owe state tax based on the state’s rates. But we decoupled from the federal guidelines for 280E.
Businesses are still responsible for 280E federally, but Colorado allows traditional deductions, as it would for a dry cleaner or grocery store. We included that in the first draft. It took us several years to do it for cannabis.
We also set out to establish a reasonable cultivation space and settled on 12 by 12 feet, roughly the size of an average bedroom. That gives someone a dedicated space for cultivation in their home.
We took a different approach to security and surveillance. When we first created marijuana rules in Colorado, we wanted almost every angle of every part of the facility covered. We’ve learned where security and surveillance make sense. A center providing on-site administration is different from a retail store where customers take everything away.
Testing was in place from day one. We didn’t have that in the earliest days of marijuana regulation. We also moved toward collecting information about potential benefits, which we’ll discuss shortly.
One thing we learned not to do was allow local opt-outs. With cannabis, only about 40% of Colorado’s counties allow either medical or adult-use cannabis. For natural medicine administration, all counties must allow it. Local jurisdictions can regulate time, place, and manner, but they cannot exclude these services.
That is important because when you look at rural communities, some of the most meaningful opportunities to help may be there. We were very intentional about not allowing opt-outs.
We also avoided some of the application burdens I experienced as a medical cannabis applicant. I had to provide pictures and descriptions of scars and tattoos, and my owner application ran to more than 300 pages. We didn’t require that level of detail for healing centers or licensed facilitators. Nor do we automatically reject applicants for any felony as we did with cannabis. [Correction from Ean after recording: the cannabis restriction he referred to covered any felony, not only a drug-related felony as stated in the recording.]
On the decriminalization side, we don’t have possession limits for psilocybin, DMT, non-peyote mescaline, or ibogaine. Our litmus test is commercialization. It didn’t make sense to set a limit. When you look at the federal limits, it’s 52 pounds for psilocybin before you get into federal guidelines and mandatory minimums. It didn’t make sense to say, “You can have 51 and a half pounds of psilocybin.” We left it at commercialization.
Measuring Benefits and Adverse Events
Lia: There are so many lessons, from reducing friction to safety. Senate Bill 25-297 introduces new data collection requirements that start next year, and the timing is great.
I want to acknowledge the OPEN Network in Oregon, which announced yesterday that it had published outcome measures in JAMA Network. It works directly with psilocybin service centers to collect and analyze data. I’ve seen some preliminary results, and they look very telling.
What data is Colorado looking to gather? What does the state hope to learn, and how is implementation going?
Ean: The bill is from 2025, and it has taken a long time. We had to raise a lot of funds through gifts, grants, and donations. Fundraising for government operations was entirely new to me: approaching generous philanthropists and donors who see value in funding state programs.
What are we hoping to learn, and how is it coming together? Collecting information about potential benefits is new. We don’t do that for marijuana in Colorado; we only collect information about adverse events. As a result, policy recommendations can follow from the information we collect.
It was important not to repeat that. It has been a challenge with marijuana, and we haven’t been able to create a database focused on its potential benefits. Recognizing that gap, we wanted to do something different with natural medicine.
I believe there are likely benefits. If the state is engaging in this large experiment, violating federal law, and giving people access to these medicines in a safe setting, don’t we have an obligation to collect information about what we’re doing? Shouldn’t that include potential benefits as well as adverse events?
Government works slowly. It took years to move responsibility for collecting that information from the business unit in the Department of Revenue to the Department of Public Health and Environment, where that information belongs.
We want to learn about obvious warning signs and anything that might inform us about who should or shouldn’t receive treatment. What kinds of benefits are people experiencing? Is it helpful for conditions we hear about anecdotally, such as addiction, depression, and PTSD? Are there other things we need to be concerned about? Is there a good saturation level, an amount of psilocin or psilocybin that yields the greatest results? All of that information matters.
We’ve raised the first few tranches of funding. This is a $2 million effort, $1.8 million over five years. We worked with PSFC, the Psychedelic Science Funders Collective, which brought together generous donors who have contributed along the way.
Everything is on track and coming together. I think parts of the system will be ready later this year. One thing I’m pleased about is the opportunity for facilitators to integrate the information they’re already required to collect at administration sessions. Even though the database isn’t running yet, they can bring in legacy data from their first year or more of sessions.
We won’t lose that. I call it the lowest-hanging fruit: the people who experienced this first and were most eager to participate. We won’t lose that valuable first-year information. There will be an opportunity to bring it all into the fold.
We also had many vendors offering to be involved. It was important to me and others that this data shouldn’t belong to one company or individual. It should be available free to qualified researchers.
The information will be de-identified. [Clarification from Ean after recording: he confirmed that researchers would receive de-identified raw data, but could not confirm whether aggregation happens before or after sharing. The recording describes the data as “de-identified, aggregated.”] I don’t know the exact access process, but qualified individuals or organizations will be able to contact the health department, demonstrate their qualifications, and access this raw information to conduct their own research. In my opinion, this is invaluable data, and it shouldn’t belong to one vendor, company, or individual.
Lia: SAMHSA brought people together in Washington, DC, in July specifically around data collection. Representatives from Colorado, including people who will oversee this work, were there. I mention that because of how important the information is to the federal government and its ability to take these policy changes seriously.
That is especially true when collection is done the way you’re describing: grounded in public health and safety, with transparency and openness. It sounds like a thoughtful program you’re putting together.
Ean: We should also acknowledge and be grateful to the federal agencies, including SAMHSA, and the work Cameron Wolf, Rick Lambert, and Sara Shoar are doing. It’s important that they’re proactively reaching out to all the states and stakeholders involved and bringing them together for meetings like that. When I started, I never imagined these conversations would be taking place and being directed from Washington. It’s remarkable.
Lia: I agree. Seeing eye to eye on these data questions and having that collaborative, cooperative spirit matters. It’s about the right people and the right actions, and you’re a big part of that. I have many more questions and limited time, so I want to move now to House Bill 26-1325 and its research-first approach to ibogaine, rather than the regulated model currently used for psilocybin.
Why was that structure right for ibogaine? Where does the pilot stand? And could you explain the benefit-sharing piece involving Indigenous and Gabonese communities?
Funding the Ibogaine Research Pilot
Ean: It was born out of necessity. Funding was difficult this year because of federal changes and Colorado’s budget. We had a $1.5 billion budget deficit and didn’t have the funds available when we created the psilocybin program.
I think this is the right structure, but it was born out of necessity. There are real challenges, including cardiotoxicity. We recognized the concerns about outcomes, wanted to proceed safely, and wanted to allow as many pathways forward as possible during this administration.
We had a regulated program, but we didn’t have funding for a regulated ibogaine program, and we had concerns about what happens during an administration session. We didn’t want to do nothing, so we created a second track and brought in another agency, BHA [Behavioral Health Administration; expanded at Ean’s request after recording], which is fairly new itself and focused on behavioral health. It made sense to put this where we’re trying to make changes in behavioral health.
We included funding in the governor’s budget, but it was removed. So we’re fundraising, just as we did for the outcome measurement database.
We need $450,000 for the first three years, with an opportunity to continue beyond that. It takes $150,000 to get started. Once that is raised, the state has a year to collect the remaining $300,000.
We have a job description ready to post. I know it’s been created because I’ve seen and reviewed it. Once the initial $150,000 is in place, we can get it posted and be off to the races.
We’ve had generous commitments from people involved with ibogaine. The Etheridge Foundation donated $50,000 a few weeks ago to help kickstart the program. Other donors have contributed too, and altogether we’ve received somewhere between $75,000 and $100,000 so far. We’re continuing to speak with stakeholders. Any generous donors listening today who want to play a role should reach out to me.
Once we have the funding, we can move forward, engage federal agencies, and hopefully receive more grants and resources to direct to up to five potential pilot sites in Colorado.
Lia: Thank you. Could you follow up on Indigenous reciprocity?
Benefit Sharing and the Path Toward Regulated Ibogaine
Ean: Over the past year, the Natural Medicine Advisory Board recommended including ibogaine as a regulated medicine, beyond decriminalization, but the recommendation was subject to Nagoya [the international protocol referenced in that recommendation].
The United States isn’t a signatory, and Colorado can’t become one itself. How could we fulfill an international protocol the country hadn’t signed? That left us stuck for a while.
With the ibogaine pilot legislation, we put benefit-sharing plans into statute. You’ll be required to engage with the communities where the medicine is sourced and enter into benefit-sharing, whether the source is Gabon, South Africa, or Arkansas. I’m not suggesting ibogaine will come from Arkansas, but wherever a natural medicine comes from, that community must be engaged.
This came from our tribal and Indigenous working group and the tribal and Indigenous members of the Natural Medicine Advisory Board. We listened to stakeholders saying they didn’t want exploitation, or for someone to go in and take something without offering anything in return. That is why it is now in statute.
I’ll consider it a success if we have a solid source of quality material with known ingredients, and the source community receives benefits it is satisfied with. That’s a fairly simple measure of success.
Lia: Now it’s in the law, which sounds like a real win. Looking ahead, what is a realistic path for ibogaine to reach where psilocybin is today?
On equity and access, New Mexico has an equity fund and conversations with its Medicaid program about paying for state-regulated models. What is Colorado thinking about insurance coverage, equity, and the next few years of this program?
Ean: Insurance has always been a thought here in Colorado. It’s ultimately where we’d like to go with marijuana, psilocybin, and natural medicine. We recently completed an interesting study on the marijuana side about reimbursing people through workers’ compensation claims. I think we’re the first in the country to really do that.
We’re lucky that organizations such as Homecoming are already working on some levels of reimbursement. I think some Colorado healing centers accept insurance for non-administration services, including preparation and integration provided as traditional talk therapy. With the appropriate billing codes, I think some of that is being submitted for talk therapy as part of the entire program.
I don’t think the state is actively discussing how to move that forward right now. We want data that supports the need and desire for coverage, but it remains an objective.
Looking forward to ibogaine, there’s the research pilot and the opportunities it creates. There’s also a meeting being called in Washington on September 15 about ARPA-H funding and the chance to present to federal officials, stakeholders, and colleagues in federal agencies. There is a tremendous opportunity federally. The federal government is more open than I’ve ever seen it.
It will be interesting to see whether states take the leap, as Colorado did with marijuana and psilocybin, despite federal illegality. Will they create a regulated model before research concludes or alongside it? Will our pilot inform a future regulated program? I certainly hope so.
Two weeks ago, our Natural Medicine Advisory Board made a modified recommendation to include ibogaine as a regulated natural medicine, without the Nagoya caveat. It recognized the benefit-sharing plan we put into law.
The executive directors [of the Department of Regulatory Agencies and the Department of Revenue; clarified by Ean after recording] still need to approve that recommendation. But there is an opportunity for the next administration to move toward implementing a regulated ibogaine model once funding is available. I hope it will consider that so people can access it safely in Colorado without leaving the country.
Lia: That’s great news. Before we turn to audience questions, I want to acknowledge how much philanthropy and skillful work have helped move this forward in a state with such budget constraints. You’ve found ways to keep those constraints from becoming a roadblock.
Perhaps economic modeling can also show the financial benefits of therapeutic-use models for the state. We certainly know marijuana has been a good thing for Colorado. Thank you for your skillfulness in moving these programs forward under the conditions you’re working with. Let’s turn to audience questions.
Audience Questions on Leadership, Safety, and Insurance
Lia: Governor Polis has been helpful on psychedelics, and he’s leaving office. What do you think Phil Weiser’s policies might be if he is elected?
Ean: I don’t want to predict an election, and I don’t work for the attorney general. But he has been focused on the opiate crisis. He was a key prosecutor in the large federal opiate settlement, from which Colorado received hundreds of millions of dollars.
We now have state and regional opiate abatement councils, and conversations are taking place about opportunities to support this work. I don’t know what a future governor will do, but I hope it continues.
I won’t stay for the next administration. I’ve had a fantastic eight years, but I need to return to private industry. I have two small children, and continuing as a public servant isn’t attainable for me. It has been the honor of a lifetime, and I hope whoever takes the role will keep moving this forward.
Lia: Laurie asks: As interest grows among people who may struggle to distinguish credible providers from bad actors, what role can education and trusted intermediaries play in helping them navigate natural medicine responsibly?
Ean: Education plays a key role. One thing we’re trying to explain is that unlicensed guides existed long before our regulated model. That may be an avenue someone wants to explore. Someone else may worry about bad actors, so the state has created a licensed facilitator training program and licenses facilitators. There is accountability in that system.
The hope is that there are no bad actors. If there are, the state is likely to find out, and penalties can include losing a license, along with civil or criminal consequences.
We’ve done the best we can to mitigate bad actors and bad medicine. We test for potency and microbials, and we vet people seeking facilitator licenses and the training programs they attend. We want to know their education provides sound information we can stand behind.
Lia: That’s one attraction of coming to Colorado from places where these medicines aren’t accessible. People can identify someone who is licensed, has completed an accredited training program, and has submitted to audits and the safeguards for practitioners and medicines. My understanding is that safety is central to the infrastructure Colorado has created.
Ean: On the regulated side, yes. On the decriminalization side, any adult over 21 has the right to engage on their own, as people have for tens of thousands of years. It’s lawful now.
Lia: People have options. It’s about choice and knowing they can find someone regulated by the state or choose a different path. That’s up to the consumer. Jim also applauds the outcomes database as critical to supporting patients and recognition of durable benefits. I agree with him.
Ean: It’s a key part of this and a legacy item I’m proud the governor can say he implemented. I hope other states follow, federal agencies look at the research we share, and we gain considerable insight.
Lia: Gaetano Lardieri asks: What will it take to achieve insurance reimbursement for state-regulated programs?
Ean: Data, legislation, and probably some initial funding.
Lia: And creativity. Federal Schedule I status can be a barrier to insurance coverage. However, we know Enthea has created an employer-sponsored plan for Oregon psilocybin services, so people have found a workaround. Ultimately, we’d love to see flexibility at the federal level with Medicare, Medicaid, and reimbursement for these state-regulated models. It’s a much larger conversation, and data collection is an important part of it.
Ean: I’d direct people to the Alternative Pain Management Program we just completed in Colorado, related to medical cannabis and workers’ compensation. There’s a published research piece, and I think it can help open a broader conversation.
Lia: That’s certainly something we’re invested in.
Advice for Other States and Finding Training
Lia: Eric Bailey asks: As you wind down your work with Colorado, what advice would you give other states seeking to establish similar policies?
Ean: Reach out to stakeholders who have had success. Find out who ran ballot initiatives or legislation elsewhere and ask what worked and what didn’t. Pay attention to your state’s politics; every state is different. Find legislative champions.
We say this to cannabis consumers, but it also applies here: start low and go slow. Work incrementally. Don’t ask for everything at once.
We aren’t doing take-home psilocybin or natural medicine. There’s no commercialization right now. Pay attention to what other states are doing, and don’t become the example another state points to as a reason it can’t proceed. Look at successes and adapt them to your state’s model.
Lia: Donna Boswell, a licensed clinician, asks how to find reputable training programs for all aspects of treatment, including services outside the medicine session.
Ean: The state has a list of all its licensed facilitator training programs and a database of licensed facilitators. You can find both online. Look at the programs, evaluate them, and contact them. The state wouldn’t have licensed them unless they met all the requirements, so in my opinion, anyone listed by Colorado is a reputable training program.
It also takes research and effort from the consumer or potential participant. It took me three years to find a facilitator I wanted to work with personally. I had many of the same concerns people are raising here. It takes a lot of work on the participant’s side to find the right person for them.
Lia: Laura Barrett shares that Maryland has passed a bill creating a psychedelic task force and that it’s going well. That’s wonderful news, Laura. Perhaps I can speak for Ean in saying to contact him if support or advice would help.
Ean, this conversation shows how knowledgeable and skillful you’ve been in moving these policies forward for Colorado. You’re a resource well beyond our borders. Thank you for sharing your hard-won experience. We’re excited to see where your path leads next, and we’re certain it will continue to serve the greater good.
Thank you to everyone who joined and contributed questions.
Ean: Thanks for having me.
Lia: We look forward to seeing everyone next month at the Delphi Insight Session. Have a great rest of your day.
