Psilocybin’s legal status is not one question but three: whether the substance is scheduled at all, whether a doctor can prescribe it, and whether an adult can access it under supervision without a diagnosis. Most published comparisons collapse these into a single “legal / illegal” column, which is why they disagree with each other.
This page separates them. Nine jurisdictions, each with the mechanism that actually applies, the date it took effect, and the statute or authority it rests on.
This is not legal advice, and it is not a recommendation to travel anywhere. Laws change, enforcement varies, and your own country’s law applies to you regardless of where you are standing.
Is psilocybin legal anywhere?
Yes, but “legal” means four different things. In Jamaica it was never scheduled, so no permission is needed. In Australia and Germany it is a controlled medicine a specialist can prescribe under strict conditions. In Switzerland and Canada it requires an individual, patient-by-patient government authorisation. In Oregon and Colorado an adult can access it under a licensed facilitator with no diagnosis at all. These are not degrees of the same thing.
Which country has the fewest restrictions?
Jamaica, and not by policy. Psilocybin was never added to the Dangerous Drugs Act, which was written to implement the 1912 and 1925–31 opium conventions — decades before psilocybin was isolated in 1958. The absence is historical, not a decision to permit.
Can I get psilocybin therapy on prescription?
In four places, under narrow conditions. Australia permits it only for treatment-resistant depression, only from a psychiatrist holding a specific TGA authorisation. Germany runs a compassionate-use programme at two named clinics. New Zealand has one authorised prescriber in the entire country. Czechia’s law is in force but the treatment has not launched yet.
Does legal access mean medical supervision?
No, and this is the most common misreading. Oregon and Colorado are not medical frameworks. No diagnosis, no prescription and no referral is required; sessions are led by licensed facilitators who need not be clinicians. Whether that is better or worse depends on what you need — but it is a different thing from a prescription.
Not scheduled
JAMAICA
Psilocybin has never been listed in the Dangerous Drugs Act or added by any amendment. No licence or permission regime exists because none was ever created.
Since: Act dates from 1948; never amended to include psilocybin
— Floyd Green, Minister of State, Government of Jamaica, 15 July 2021
The Act is organised around named substances — raw opium and coca leaves, prepared opium, ganja, cocaine and morphine — rather than a schedule of hundreds of compounds. Its own text refers to the Hague Convention of 1912 and the Geneva Conventions of 1925 and 1931. Psilocybin is controlled internationally under the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances, which this Act does not implement.
The Minister may extend the Act by order, but only to a substance whose effects are “substantially of the same character or nature as or analogous to those produced by morphine or cocaine”. Psilocybin is a serotonergic compound and produces neither.
Our own residential weeks take place in Jamaica. We state that here rather than in a footnote.
Available on prescription or medical application
AUSTRALIA
Rescheduled from Schedule 9 (prohibited) to Schedule 8 (controlled drug) for treatment-resistant depression only. Prescribing is restricted to psychiatrists holding TGA Authorised Prescriber approval, which itself requires human research ethics committee approval. For every other indication psilocybin remains Schedule 9.
Since: 1 July 2023
GERMANY
A compassionate-use programme for treatment-resistant depression, approved by the federal medicines regulator. Two clinics participate. Patients must have failed at least two adequate courses of antidepressants and show that a clinical trial is not available to them. Each dosing session is monitored by two trained professionals, one of them a physician.
Since: 11 July 2025
NEW ZEALAND
One psychiatrist in the country is authorised to prescribe, under the Medicines Act, for adults whose depression has not responded to at least two conventional treatments. Psilocybin itself remains an unapproved medicine. Other clinicians may apply.
Since: June 2025
CZECHIA
An amendment to the Criminal Code and an accompanying government regulation exempt therapeutic psilocybin administered in specialised healthcare facilities. A psychiatrist prescribes; two professionals attend each session. The law is in force but the treatment has not launched. The national institute stated in March 2026 that funding conditions remain unfinished, that no waiting list is open, and that launch is expected in the second half of 2026.
Since: Law in force 1 January 2026; treatment not yet available
Individual authorisation, case by case
SWITZERLAND
Article 8(5) of the Narcotics Act allows the Federal Office of Public Health to grant an exceptional authorisation for a named patient, applied for by the treating physician once conventional treatment has been exhausted. There is no general framework; each application is decided on its own facts and includes the patient’s written consent. This is the longest continuously running legal psychedelic therapy route in the world.
Since: 2014
Source: Narcotics Act art. 8(5); Federal Office of Public Health
CANADA
No general framework. Two routes: the Special Access Program, through which a physician may request access for a serious or life-threatening condition after conventional treatment has failed, and an individual section 56(1) exemption. Health Canada prioritises end-of-life distress and has tightened its exemption criteria.
Since: Special Access Program opened to psilocybin 5 January 2022
Supervised access without a diagnosis
These two are frequently listed as “medical” jurisdictions. They are not. No diagnosis, prescription or referral is required, and the person supervising the session need not be a clinician.
OREGON, UNITED STATES
Measure 109, codified as ORS 475A. Any adult aged 21 or over may access services at a licensed service centre: a preparation session, a supervised administration session, and an optional integration session. Sessions are led by a licensed facilitator, a role that does not require a clinical qualification.
Since: Licensing opened 2 January 2023; first centres opened summer 2023
COLORADO, UNITED STATES
Proposition 122 and SB23-290. Licensed “healing centres” provide supervised access to adults. Businesses are licensed by the Department of Revenue; facilitators are regulated by the Department of Regulatory Agencies, not by a medical board — which is the clearest single indication that this is not a medical framework. From 1 June 2026 the advisory board may add DMT, ibogaine and mescaline.
Since: Applications opened 31 December 2024; first healing centre licence 31 March 2025; first regulated session 6 June 2025
Partly permitted
NETHERLANDS
Psilocybin truffles are legal to sell and possess; the mushrooms themselves are not. The distinction is botanical rather than pharmacological, and it is one of the most persistent misunderstandings in the category.
Since: Opium Act, as amended 2008
Source: Opium Act
PORTUGAL
Possession and use are decriminalised; cultivation and sale remain illegal. Decriminalisation is not legalisation, and the difference matters to anyone planning anything.
Since: Law 30/2000
Source: Law 30/2000
What this page deliberately does not say
We do not list every country.
Around a dozen jurisdictions are frequently named in this category — Mexico, Costa Rica, Peru, Brazil, Spain, Austria, Israel — where we could not establish the current position from a statute or a government authority. Publishing an unsourced row would make the whole table less useful, so those are absent rather than guessed.
We do not publish participation numbers.
Figures circulate for how many authorisations Switzerland grants, how many Canadians have been approved, and how many people have used Oregon’s programme. Most trace back to trackers rather than to the authorities themselves. The mechanism is what matters and the mechanism is documented; the counts are not, so they are not here.
We do not tell you whether any of this applies to you.
Your own country’s law follows you. Several jurisdictions on this list prosecute their residents for conduct abroad, and none of the frameworks above changes that.
In one sentence
Psilocybin is unscheduled in one country on this list, prescribable in four under narrow medical conditions, available by individual government authorisation in two, and accessible to adults under supervision without any diagnosis in two more — and treating those as the same thing is the single most common error in the category.
Last reviewed 17 August 2026 against primary legislation and government sources. Informational only; not legal advice. If you spot an error, tell us and we will correct it and say we did.