New Jersey

1. 1What the law is

New Jersey's pilot puts psilocybin therapy inside hospitals. SB 2283 created a two-year Psilocybin Behavioral Health Access and Services Pilot Program at three hospitals, funded at $6 million, and was signed in January 2026. Outside the pilot, nothing about possession changed. One gap we will not paper over: the New Jersey Legislature's websites refuse connections from our systems, so the enacted text and the exact signing date rest on trade press and law-firm reporting rather than on a state source. A manual check is queued.

New Jersey enacted the Psilocybin Behavioral Health Access and Services Act (S2283 / A3852) on January 20, 2026, creating a two-year, hospital-based pilot program rather than any form of general access. The law directs the selection of three hospitals, one in each region of the state, to provide psilocybin-assisted therapy to adults 21 and older with certified qualifying conditions. The program carries $6 million in funding, allocated at $2 million per hospital, operates within FDA and DEA research compliance requirements, and is overseen by an 11-member advisory board; participating hospitals must collect outcome data and report findings to the Governor and Legislature. Earlier versions of the bill proposed licensed service centers, decriminalization, and expungement of past offenses, but all of those provisions were removed before passage. Outside the pilot, psilocybin remains a Schedule I controlled dangerous substance under New Jersey law, and production, distribution, and possession remain criminal offenses. The state did, however, reduce possession penalties in 2021: A5084, signed in February of that year, reclassified possession of up to one ounce of psilocybin from a third-degree crime to a disorderly persons offense, punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

New Jersey enacted a state-funded psilocybin therapy program and chose the most restrictive model available: a closed, hospital-run pilot rather than the regulated access systems operating in Oregon and Colorado. The 2021 possession downgrade served as quiet groundwork, lowering enforcement stakes years before any therapeutic framework existed. The pilot is built to be self-evaluating. Hospitals must submit clinical outcome data to the Governor and Legislature, and the advisory board is charged with recommending whether a broader statewide care system should follow. Those reports, due as the two-year program concludes, will determine what comes next.