Denver magic mushroom co-op sues Colorado in federal court to stay open
Darren Lyman hasn't shut down his psilocybin service, but a new state law is coming for it.
By Sage Kelley
September 8, 2026
One of Colorado’s early adopters of the unlicensed psilocybin space wants to take the state to federal court for trying to shut down his operation.
Darren Lyman has been a Denver-based psilocybin purveyor since 2023 out of his studios at 800 W. Eighth Ave., but his business, Lyman Support Centers, has existed in a gray zone.
Psilocybin use is legal in Colorado, but state law requires screening and post-facilitation meetings, and patients must be supervised while they experience psilocybin’s psychoactive effects. The average price for one of these ventures, according to Lyman, is around $2,000.
Lyman Support Centers has less red tape than the supervised services, with most visits costing anywhere from $60 to $100. Adults 21 and over enter one of the suites and pay to be screened by Lyman, who hands out educational materials and advice on how to properly use psychedelics that are decriminalized in Colorado, which include psilocybin, DMT, ibogaine and mescaline. Then, customers go to a different suite in the building and are “gifted” psychedelics such as raw mushrooms, infused chocolates, capsules and DMT. The actual transaction is over education materials and guidance on intentional use, he says, and not the psychedelics themselves, he says.
No one trips there, according to Lyman; it’s more of a before-you-go type of transaction.
“I want those clinical sessions to exist. I want those spaces to be open,” Lyman says of the supervised services. “It’s not my intention to affect that industry at all in any way. What I’m doing is providing education and harm reduction support for low-income people who really can’t afford a $1,500 trip-sit.”
The state has never really agreed with Lyman’s approach, however, and he’s running out of options to defend himself.
Fighting state regulators
In 2023, the Colorado Natural Medicine Division (NMD), a branch of the state Department of Revenue that regulates the commercial side of psychedelic therapy, sent Lyman a cease-and-desist order, alleging that he conducts “business transactions” and the “advertisement and exchange of psilocybin mushrooms for remuneration.” This is illegal, according to the NMD.
Lyman’s advertisements in Westword were cited in the order. According to Lyman, he stopped advertising after receiving the NMD’s order, but his website and studio kept running.
“It never said anything about his website or being engaged in any kind of unlawful facilitation,” Lyman’s attorney at the time said of the first cease-and-desist order.
Lyman received another cease-and-desist in December 2025 from the state Department of Regulatory Affairs (DORA), which regulates psilocybin practitioners in Colorado. This time, Lyman was accused of unlicensed facilitation, a charge he disputes because he doesn’t administer or facilitate psychedelics at his studio, he says, so he kept operating. Then, state lawmakers got involved.
No more unlicensed mushroom sales
In June, Gov. Jared Polis signed House Bill 26-1325, which took effect on Aug. 12. The law was presented by sponsors as a way for the state to start researching the medical use of ibogaine, a powerful psychedelic originally used by Central African tribes. And it does— but, at the last second, lawmakers added clearer pathways for prosecutors to go after psilocybin mushroom sales connected to education, harm reduction or membership clubs. Basically, it stops harm reduction services or support services from selling natural medicine when it is not intended to be consumed under the supervision of the person or entity dispensing it.
Under the new law, if a person is paid and natural medicine is shared, the support must happen concurrently with the consumption, making Lyman’s operation illegal. But he argues that his harm reduction business and where the psilocybin products are gifted are at separate addresses, so he is not technically sharing natural medicine in the same place he is paid.
Lyman filed a civil rights lawsuit against DORA in Colorado District Court on Aug. 18, asking for a temporary restraining order to freeze “retaliatory” state administrative prosecutions. He goes on to argue in the complaint that discussing “mushroom biology, dosage and integration is protected educational speech that cannot be conditioned upon a cost-prohibitive $3,500 clinical license.”
He claims the law was rushed through and hidden under the guise of the ibogaine research to cut off his ongoing appeals from the two other cease-and-desist orders in the past. This alleged strong-arming forces him to either give up what he sees as his legal rights or risk being shut down and criminally charged, according to Lyman, who believes that HB 1325’s added language was “orchestrated by state regulators to protect high-priced corporate clinical monopolies from affordable, peer-led community harm reduction.”
Part of the lawsuit claims that the State of Colorado launched a “bad-faith campaign” against Lyman. He says he is a well-known figure in local environmental and civil rights advocacy efforts, including his push for personal rights in the psychedelics space, which made him a target as other “gray-market somatic coaches” skirted under the radar.
All in all, Lyman’s lawsuit asks a judge to drop the state’s cease-and-desist orders, along with any other threats of ending his operation. He also seeks $350 million in restitution for “severe personal and business disruption.”
“We’re happy to lead the front line of this, but the industrial healthcare complex, the government, those in control want it to be accessible for monetary gain,” he says. “And I’m not even their biggest threat. The biggest threat is when it rains, you can go out and find mushrooms all over the place.”
DORA has not responded to an inquiry regarding the lawsuit. According to Lyman, his support center is still operating.
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