This Denver business offers magic mushrooms in legal gray area
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Psychedelic healing centers may not be open just yet in Colorado, but at least one local business is already offering access to medicinal magic mushrooms.
Zoom in: Lyman Support Centers — a small studio tucked just off Denver's Santa Fe Drive — has been offering psilocybin mushrooms as natural medicine for the past roughly two years.
- Owner Darren Lyman told Axios Denver he believes he's operating legally under Colorado's 2022 voter-approved Natural Medicine Health Act, which decriminalized psychedelics and legalized medical psilocybin, including personal cultivation, possession and sharing.
- Lyman customers get their 'shrooms from his facility after a "support" session but consume them elsewhere.
How it works: You walk in after buzzing a call box, show your ID (21+ only), and sit down for a chat with a staffer — 10 to 30 minutes for first-timers, often less for regulars, Lyman tells us.
- The sessions cover the basics: your intended use, what psilocybin does and how to dose it properly.
- They cost between $10 and $200 and include "free" mushrooms, ranging from microdoses to a full ounce — available in dried, chocolate or capsule form.
- Lyman sources his mushrooms from multiple Colorado growers and tests them at Tryptomics and Friday Ventures for potency and purity.
Reality check: It looks and feels like a dispensary, though Lyman insists he doesn't "sell" 'shrooms.
The intrigue: Law enforcement has taken notice, and Lyman says he's been investigated for operating in what some see as a legal gray area — but so far, he's never been charged or forced to shut down.
What he's saying: His business is "100% in the legal scope" and already attracting people "from all over the world."
What's next: Despite Colorado's push for regulated healing centers, where psilocybin is consumed on-site, Lyman has no plans to convert his operation.
- Instead, he's expanding his product line to include psilocybin-infused lotions, creams and even lip balm.
- He's also working on a psychedelic tourism initiative to put Colorado on the map as an alternative healing destination.
The big picture: "This is the answer for health care and the future," Lyman says.