Bifurcation Squared: Compass Lobbies for Narrow Rescheduling in Colorado, Virginia; Pushes Back on State Policy Reforms

Here, we take a look at Compass Pathways’ lobbying agenda, with a particular focus on a Colorado bill that the company is backing, as well as its quiet opposition to psychedelic decriminalisation and the creation of state-regulated programs like those passed in Oregon and Colorado. We also highlight a rescheduling trigger law bill in Virginia that specifically calls out ‘COMP360’.

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Written by Josh Hardman, with support from Editor-at-Large Graham Pechenik of Calyx Law.

Compass Supports Colorado Bill that Would Only Reschedule ‘Crystalline Polymorph Psilocybin’ Upon FDA Approval

On the first day of the 2025 session of Colorado’s General Assembly, House Bill 25-1063 (PDF) was introduced by Representatives Hartsook (R) and Brown (D), as well as Senator Michaelson Jene (R).

The Bill, FDA-Approved Crystalline Polymorph Psilocybin Use, would create a trigger law that would reschedule, in the state, a prescription medicine containing ‘crystalline polymorph psilocybin’ upon its approval by FDA and federal rescheduling.

Psilocybin drug developer Compass Pathways is supporting the Bill, and the company’s Senior Manager of Advocacy and State Government Policy, Tess Bettler, spoke in support of it at its first hearing in the House Health and Human Services Committee.

If the Bill passes as-is, the general assembly would declare that “it is in the best interests of the people of Colorado that behavioral health professionals in Colorado have the ability to provide crystalline polymorph psilocybin to treat patients with treatment-resistant depression if the federal food and drug administration ultimately approves it for prescription use.”

In practise, this would be achieved by amending Colorado Revised Statutes, 18-18-203, (2)(c)(XXI), to exempt a prescription drug product containing crystalline polymorph psilocybin approved by FDA and rescheduled federally from the state’s Schedule I placement, when intended for prescribed use, dispensed by a registered entity or individual, and possessed by an authorised person.

These types of trigger laws aren’t unheard of. While many of the fifty states in the U.S. automatically mirror federal schedules, more than 20 states make their own scheduling decisions (see Ali et al., 2022; Houck, 2024).

That can cause delays for sponsors bringing Schedule I drugs to market, as they must have their products moved out of Schedule I in order for them to be legally prescribed and administered to patients.

That’s why sponsors of Schedule I drugs, from companies like Orphan Medical (which developed sodium oxybate or GHB) to more recent examples like MDMA drug developer Lykos Therapeutics, have sought to pre-emptively encourage the passing of trigger laws like the one just introduced in Colorado.

HB 22-1344, for example, passed in 2022 following lobbying by MAPS PBC (now Lykos Therapeutics). That Act states that if the FDA approves a prescription medicine containing MDMA, and if that medicine is moved out of Schedule I at the federal level, authorised persons may prescribe, dispense, transport, possess and use that medicine in Colorado.

A Bill in New York (2021-A9722) took on an even broader aim, calling for the state’s Commissioner of Health to reclassify any compound, mixture or preparation containing any Schedule I substance upon federal rescheduling or descheduling. MAPS PBC lobbied in support of the bill, alongside lobbying “regarding rescheduling of MDMA therapy for treatment of PTSD in the state of New York”. We understand that MAPS/Lykos would have gone after a similarly broad Bill in Colorado, but believed it was unlikely that such a broad Bill would pass in the state for political reasons.

Indeed, Lykos has more recently sought to pass broader bills in other states. In California it spent tens of thousands with New Momentum Strategies in 2023 for lobbying on issues like AB 1021, a bill that automatically brings scheduled substances in the state in line with federal scheduling. It was signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom in September that same year.

So, why are we taking a closer look at HB 25-1063 if such trigger laws are par for the course among Schedule I drug developers?

While it uses similar language, the situation envisioned by the Compass-backed bill is much more specific than the bifurcated scheduling envisioned by the Lykos-backed HB 22-1344, for example, which would make lawful in Colorado the use of any “prescription drug product containing” MDMA generally.

What Compass is doing is much more self-serving, it appears. While classic bifurcated scheduling would see any FDA-approved psilocybin-containing medicine downscheduled, HB 25-1063 would only allow a specific form of an approved psilocybin-containing drug would be downscheduled: ‘crystalline polymorph’ psilocybin. All other forms of psilocybin, in this scenario, would remain in their current Schedule: i.e., Schedule I at the time of writing.

Bifurcated scheduling is a process by which federal or state drug control agencies enact a limited rescheduling of a drug (product).

Classic cases of bifurcated scheduling include gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), which was placed in Schedule I in February 2000 but an FDA-approved product containing one of its salts, like the medicines Xywav and Xyrem, is treated as a Schedule III substance. Cannabis-based medicines are another good example, with THC remaining a Schedule I substance while products like encapsulated synthetic THC, marketed as Marinol, are treated as Schedule III substances. You can read much, much more in our Pα+ Library entry on Bifurcated Scheduling.

In some ways, then, this Bill tries to create ‘bifurcated-bifurcated scheduling’, where it’s not enough for a psilocybin-based drug to be approved; it must be a crystalline polymorph psilocybin drug product.

What is Compass Hoping to Achieve?

Having an FDA-approved drug product rescheduled in those states that don’t automatically mirror federal schedules can take time, which is why sponsors like Compass might attempt to get a head start on that process, avoiding additional launch delays down the line. Time is money… especially when the market exclusivity clock is ticking.

But instead of pushing a bill that called for the rescheduling of FDA-approved Schedule I drugs generally, or any prescription drugs containing psilocybin, Compass is pushing a bill that would only confer the automatic rescheduling—and thus time-saving benefit—to crystalline polymorph psilocybin, like its COMP360 product.

In that sense, Compass might be planning to leave state-by-state hurdles to market entry in place for other psilocybin drug developers that might bring FDA-approved formulations to market down the line. (That might be even more effective if lawmakers are hesitant to introduce a broader psilocybin-focused trigger Bill at a later date.)

In that case, one might wonder why Compass’ lobbyists didn’t go the whole hog and seek to limit the bill even more tightly to its form of crystalline polymorph psilocybin, ‘Polymorph A’, which it has filed and obtained patents on.

Perhaps it thought that would be a little too on the nose, potentially raising eyebrows and making a self-serving strategy too obvious through its specificity. Perhaps the company’s lobbyists instead sought to focus (or were/are prepared to focus on such things, should there be pushback on its narrow language) on facets of a synthetic psilocybin product that it might argue augment patient safety, as opposed to exposing the Bill as potentially anti-competitive. Or perhaps the company thought further specificity was unnecessary, given its exclusivity for other polymorphs through its granted patents.

It might also have felt it could compromise the potential advantage the bill presumably aims to confer should Compass decide to bring one of its other psilocybin forms to market, such as its Polymorph “A prime”, by necessitating the filing of a new bill.

Well, that was our speculation, but the company’s Chief Commercial Officer, Lori Englebert, told Psychedelic Alpha that the company would support a bill that was worded so tightly as to directly reference its COMP360 if it felt state lawmakers would allow.

(Indeed, that strategy is on display in Virginia, where a bill has been introduced that refers only to “the FDA-approved prescription drug COMP360”. More on that later.)

As a for-profit company, Compass’ self-serving lobbying should not be surprising. Instead, the more pertinent question might be: Why would Colorado lawmakers introduce such a narrow bill that could preference one investigational drug over others?

Why Would Colorado Lawmakers Introduce Such a Bill?

Given that bifurcated scheduling is an accepted practice, why would these three Colorado lawmakers feel the need to introduce a Bill that re-invents the wheel and in doing so further restricts such action to those drug products containing crystalline polymorph psilocybin?

It’s difficult to argue that the Bill would be unclear if “crystalline polymorph” had been omitted, instead focusing on “psilocybin” more generally, as there are many stipulations throughout the text that make it crystal clear it would only refer to FDA-approved psilocybin formulations and use cases.

In the proposed amendment to Colorado statute included in the Bill, for example, the term “prescription drug” is invoked three times, with other stipulations also appearing, including: only where “approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration”, where it is “intended for prescribed use”, where it is “dispensed by a pharmacy of prescription drug outlet registered by the State of Colorado”, and further where “only possessed by a person authorized to possess a controlled substance pursuant to section 18-18-203.”

There should be no shadow of a doubt, therefore, that the Bill only refers to bona fide FDA-approved psilocybin-containing prescription medicines prescribed, possessed and administered in accepted contexts.

Given this fact, the inclusion of the modifier, “crystalline polymorph”, is unusual, and is presumably the doing of Compass Pathways and its lobbyists.

Most glaringly obvious is the language itself. “Crystalline polymorph psilocybin” is not a commonly used term.

In fact, a search reveals that this exact three-word phrase only appears in a couple of places: this Bill, and a December 2024 preprint of a preclinical research article using Compass’ drug product, co-authored by two Compass employees, and supported by the company. There, the authors describe rats receiving an injection of COMP360, which they describe as “Compass Pathways’ investigational formulation of synthesized crystalline polymorph psilocybin”. If we run a slightly less strict search, we find that Compass uses the language “crystalline Polymorph A of psilocybin” in its patent filings.

It seems obvious, then, that Compass lobbied for the inclusion of this language in the Bill, or even provided a draft of the text, especially when paired with a heavy focus in Section 1 of the Bill on elements of Compass’ development program, including describing TRD as the primary indication and passing references to the company’s own clinical trials.

So, the answer to why lawmakers might have opted for an unusually restrictive approach to bifurcated scheduling might lie in the fact that they are relying on corporate lobbyists to guide them in introducing such trigger bills.

Only one of the three lawmakers, Rep. Kyle Brown, responded to our request for comment. He provided a generic comment on how mental health treatment is important to Coloradans, and how he wants the state to be prepared in the event of an approval.

He also mentioned that Coloradans “have shown support for natural psychedelic treatment options when they passed Prop 122”, which his Republican co-sponsor, Hartsook, is opposed to.

While lawmakers might not be keen to discuss Compass’ hand in the Bill, the company’s Chief Commercial Officer was much more forthright when speaking with us.

She suggested that lawmakers in some states might ‘want to control more specifically’ what the Bill covers, ‘so that they can assess the safety of a specific product in the patient population studied and the DEA schedule before making the state level determination.’ In some cases, Englebert says lawmakers ‘say they want the brand name’, while in others they ‘just want broad psilocybin’.

Besides being a useful argument for the lobbyist when an apparently self-serving strategy is pointed out, it’s unclear why state lawmakers should take on the role of marking FDA’s work. This implies a fundamental distrust of the FDA’s ability to review and approve medicines, and duplicates reviews thus delaying access in the state¹. That is, of course, unless corporate lobbyists stump up the cash to get a trigger bill in place, which front-loads that state-level review process.

What’s more, one of the two House sponsors, Hartsook, is a Director at a libertarian think tank, Future Freedom Foundation, which has penned thought pieces on ‘big pharma and crony capitalism’ expressing suspicion about the government’s role in healthcare. “Relying on government to check the results is dangerous to your health”, one such piece reads. It’s unclear why state government should be any different, or why state lawmakers might be qualified to do such checking².

Back to the topic of Prop 122, which created the state’s Natural Medicine program, Compass’ Englebert suggests that the program is a good reason to introduce the Bill, which is more tightly focused on crystalline polymorph psilocybin. ‘Because the natural form of psilocybin is legalised in Colorado’, she told us, ‘having an FDA-approved psilocybin product on the market may embolden and empower people to use the natural form in patient populations that have not been studied or are not safe.’

But, as aforementioned, this argument falls flat when viewed in light of the crystal clear conditions surrounding the type of drug product and its prescription, possession, and use that would be written into law.

Englebert admitted that it’s only partially about patient safety and adherence to an FDA-regulated pathway. It’s also about maintaining the ‘integrity’ of its psilocybin drug product, which she emphasised the company is spending millions of dollars to bring to market.

Indeed, the blame probably shouldn’t be laid at the feet of Compass: As a for-profit company, this is all we might expect them to do. We should expect to see similar behaviour from its peers, too. For example, MindMed may introduce similar Bills covering LSD d-tartrate.

In many senses, Compass is the first company to pursue psychedelic drug development through a more conventional for-profit lens. While MAPS and Lykos might have tried to have broader trigger laws pass (i.e., ones that would see any MDMA-containing drug product, or even any Schedule I substance-containing drug product, rescheduled), there’s no reason to believe its peers will do the same.

But just why state lawmakers—especially a libertarian one—would duplicate the bureaucratic efforts of FDA and DEA and introduce a narrow Bill that could provide greater market exclusivity to a for-profit company is unclear. It’s perhaps some combination of a desire for narrow state control over the availability of Schedule I substance-containing medicines, being used to accepting draft bills from corporate lobbyists, and a lack of public knowledge about or engagement with the process.

Psychedelics Field Responds

According to the state’s lobbying disclosure system, there is no lobbyist or client formally opposing the Bill at this time, but individuals and organisations Psychedelic Alpha spoke to expressed feelings from concern through to confusion about Compass’ intentions.

Of course, this scenario would have implications for non-crystalline polymorph forms of psilocybin in the state of Colorado which, if the Bill passes, would remain in the prevailing schedule even if approved by FDA and rescheduled at the federal level—in the absence of other action by the state.

That could cut certain drug development companies out. Take Filament Health, for example, which is developing a naturally-derived form of psilocybin through the FDA botanical drug pathway. That product would appear excluded by the bill if it obtained FDA approval and federal rescheduling. Amorphous forms of synthetic psilocybin, such as Diamond Therapeutics’ “a-polymorphic psilocybin”, also would appear excluded.

Filament CEO Benjamin Lightburn wasn’t surprised by Compass’ tactics, telling Psychedelic Alpha that its apparent self-serving nature “is to be totally expected.”

Instead, he said the situation “says more about the absurdity of controlled substances regimes and the system in general.” “Now every sponsor of a drug candidate which is a controlled substance must go around enriching lobbyists making trigger laws at the state level specific to their own drugs”, he continued, “ when really these things should all just flow from an FDA approval at the federal level.”

In terms of whether the Compass-backed Bill could act as a blocker to Filament’s candidates, Lightburn said that he thinks the ‘crystalline polymorph’ element “is a bit strange.” “At first glance, this has been done to exclude natural products”, he added, “but any psilocybin purified via recrystallization would be included, including natural products as well as synthetic competitors like Usona.” But this could arguably depend on the interpretation of “crystalline” and “polymorph”, showing there’s also uncertainty in the application of the Bill.

He wondered whether Compass “may be thinking of drawing a distinction between the state regulated market and their own”, but added that the state-regulated market “only includes natural products and does not exclude those purified by recrystallization: i.e. you could have a natural crystalline polymorph product.” (At least, under controlled conditions and favorable statutory interpretation.) But, he added, “the state legal product would not have FDA approval, so again it’s not sure what’s trying to be accomplished.”

“It would seem that a more logical approach would be to word this trigger law to something even more specific to COMP360—and exclude other synthetic manufacturers—or even more logically to include all psilocybin”, he concluded. As aforementioned, it seems that is Compass’ ideal scenario, but it moderates the type of bill it introduces from state-to-state, according to the political landscape.

Porta Sophia’s David Casimir seemed to agree with Lightburn. ‘Everyone’s psilocybin is technically crystalline and polymorph,’ he told us, pointing out that ‘if you have a crystalline form, there are multiple polymorphs.’

“If you had chemists writing the legislation”, Casimir added, “they would have just said psilocybin.”

Casimir worries that, by using Compass’ preferred terminology, the Bill—should it become law—could create future court battles and litigation due to questions over its interpretation. That would be a waste of time and money, all while the ‘serious public health implications’ associated with depression that the Bill’s prelude highlights rage on.

He likened Compass’ strategy to opening the window only a crack, knowing there’s other groups right behind trying to come through the same opening with their own psilocybin-based medicines which could help patients. Lawmakers should be wary of this, he suggested.

Terran Biosciences CEO Sam Clark, meanwhile, wasn’t so worried. “Since Terran has developed the first new crystal polymorph of psilocybin, legislation that positively affects crystal polymorphs of psilocybin will benefit our new patented form as well”, Clark said.

But the impression that Compass is trying to use the Bill to gain an advantage was common among people we spoke to, regardless of whether it would be successful in this case.

Indeed, the Bill’s lone opponent at Tuesday’s committee meeting was Jimmy Smrz, Director of a local psychedelics-focused media organisation and a Denver Republican Party board member. He worried the Bill would give “a competitive advantage to one company, Compass Pathways”, in the context of the state’s regulated psychedelics program. (Though, it is worth pointing out that Compass surely has no interest in operating within the state’s Natural Medicine program.)

Beyond Colorado: Compass’ State-by-State Lobbying Agenda

While Colorado might be a case study for Compass’ lobbying efforts in the rescheduling trigger law realm, it’s far from the only state the company is active in. And, beyond trigger laws, the Compass is also lobbying on bills related to state-regulated psychedelics programs as well as those that would decriminalise psychedelics.

‘COMP360’ Trigger Law Bill Introduced in Virginia

As aforementioned, Compass has stated that it would not hesitate to reference ‘COMP360’ explicitly in a rescheduling trigger law bill, and others had wondered why it didn’t do just that. Compass’ Englebert suggested it comes down to the preferences of lawmakers in each state.

It appears that the company believes lawmakers in Virginia might tolerate such a bill, as Senate Bill 1135, sponsored by Senator Jennifer Boysko (D), would only make legal the prescription, dispensing, possession, distribution, transport, and use of “the FDA-approved prescription drug COMP360”.

Broader Lobbying on Decriminalisation, State-Regulated Psychedelics Programs

In 2020, Compass Pathways co-founder and then-CEO George Goldsmith was accused of seeking to influence the future of Oregon’s state-regulated psilocybin program, the first such initiative in the U.S.

A March 2021 article by David Bronner ‘sounded the alarm’ on what he perceived to be “Compass’s Interference with Oregon’s Psilocybin Therapy Program”. Allusions were made to emails Goldsmith apparently sent to Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) professors shortly after voters endorsed Measure 109 in November 2020.

The extent of that alleged campaign is unclear and contested, but one such email was brought to light via Shayla Love’s September 2021 reporting in VICE. In it, Goldsmith said that his company “firmly believe[]” that innovation in mental health care “should be developed along existing regulatory standards with FDA oversight.” He invited the recipient, psychiatry professor George Keepers, to a Zoom or a call, wondering “if there might be a research opportunity upon which we might collaborate.” Goldsmith told VICE that he did not intend to hinder Measure 109, and that he was interested in the “data”.

Aside from small flare-ups, Compass has largely avoided controversy in the years since. For many years, Compass was the primary target of criticisms related to attempts to commercialise psychedelics: the ‘corporadelic’ caricature, if you will. Then, the company’s stock price crashed following the read-out of its Phase 2b results in late 2021, with discussion also swirling around serious adverse events in that trial. And then in 2022, a lawsuit accused the company of stealing trade secrets. All this to say, Compass has probably been happy to keep its head down for a couple of years, allowing Lykos to face the bulk of public scrutiny.

But as the company continues towards commercialisation it’s ramping up its lobbying efforts, and that might see it stick its head above the parapet once more and receive fresh criticism from some corners of the psychedelics community.

Colorado is just one area of focus for Compass’ lobbying agenda, with its state-by-state lobbying effort coordinated by the firm National Strategies along with local lobbying outfits in many states.

States vary in how much information they disclose publicly on lobbying activity, and combing through each state’s often antiquated disclosure system is an arduous task. Nonetheless, it reveals that Compass has registered lobbyists in many states, often via National Strategies:

Alaska: The MOHR Company
Arizona: Policy Development Group, Inc
California: Valencia Government Relations, Inc.
Colorado: Howes Wolf
Florida: Holland & Knight LLC
Georgia: Holland & Knight LLC
Iowa: Policyworks
Kansas: Kearney and Associates
Maryland: Manis Canning & Associates
Massachusetts: Preti Strategies; National Strategies, LLC
Michigan: Gregory Eaton
Minnesota: United Strategies
Missouri: Wood Martin LLC; Gateway Government Relations
Nebraska: Zulkoski Weber LLC
New Jersey: Princeton Public Affairs Group Inc
North Carolina: Ken Melton and Associates, LLC
Pennsylvania: Triad Strategies LLC
Rhode Island: William A. Farrell & Associates LLC
Utah: Lincoln Hill Partners
Vermont: MMR, LLC
Virginia: Williams Mullen
West Virginia: Capitol Advocates, LLC

As you can see, Compass has engaged lobbyists across the country.

From those states that do give us more granular information about the nature of lobbying activity, we can see that at least some efforts are focused on scheduling-related matters, such as support for H7446 and S2820 in Rhode Island.

But Compass also appears interested in lobbying on things like psychedelic task forces (like HB-228 and SB-166 in Alaska) and state-regulated programs (like New Jersey’s SB 2283, Psilocybin Behavioral Health Access and Services Act where Compass was pushing for an amendment of some sort), but it’s not always clear which way they’re trying to influence things. (And in some cases, it’s not even clear what they’re lobbying on at all. In Virginia, for example, filings simply state that the company is lobbying on, “Any and all issues related to pharmaceutical psilocybin”, which presumably includes SB 1135.)

In the country’s most populous state, California, the company has retained Valencia Government Relations to lobby on various issues. Between April and September 2024, it paid Valencia at least $37,500, according to filings.

That lobbying included issues related to “state rescheduling of federally reclassified Schedule 1 Drugs”, but also other issues including specific bills like SB-803 (The Heal Our Heroes Act, which would have established a Psychedelic-Assisted Facilitation Pilot Program), SB-1012 (The Regulated Psychedelic Facilitators Act and the Regulated Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Act, which would create a state-regulated psychedelics program for drugs including DMT, MDMA, and psilocybin), and AB-2841 (related to California’s Research Advisory Panel meetings). It is interesting to see the company lobbying around the many ill-fated attempts to establish state-regulated psychedelics programs in California, though due to lack of granularity in disclosures, we cannot glean the precise nature or direction of the company’s influence.

Anyhow, the California lobbying effort appears ongoing, as Compass filed an authorisation form for Valencia to lobby on its behalf in the 2025/26 session in December 2024.

But the general direction of its lobbying becomes much more clear upon speaking with company representatives, with Englebert suggesting Compass wants to push back against liberalised access to psychedelics via state-level programs.

‘If there’s anything in a bill that suggests states make their own state-level programs’, she told us, ‘we want to make sure lawmakers are educated on why the FDA-approval pathway helps enhance patient safety and allows for reimbursement’.

It’s also trying to slow the roll on decriminalisation measures, too, with Englebert telling Psychedelic Alpha that where such bills call for decriminalisation, the company has called for the state to instead follow the DEA.

As Compass progresses toward a potential approval of its synthetic psilocybin candidate, we might only expect to see these lobbying efforts continue.

“Drug companies will lobby,” Porta Sophia’s Casimir told us, “but we need public interest groups and the media to get the ears of congresspeople to think wisely about what they’re doing.”

Pα: While trigger laws that aim to ensure the swift rescheduling of FDA-approved medicines containing formerly-Schedule I substances are not exactly new(sworthy), this Compass-backed Bill in Colorado seeks to limit the scope of psilocybin-containing medicines that would be eligible for such automatic rescheduling to only “crystalline polymorph” forms. That is, of course, the company’s preferred way of referring to its own investigational product, at least in its patent filings.

While a charitable interpretation of the Bill could be that it seeks to draw a distinction between the natural psilocybin products that will soon be available via the state’s regulated natural medicine program and FDA-approved pharmaceutical formulations, employing the “crystalline polymorph” modifier is really not necessary to do so: the Bill has ample text to make it clear that the rescheduling would only apply to FDA-approved prescription medicines, prescribed, handled and administered in regulated contexts… as is the case in other instances of so-called bifurcated scheduling.

One might wonder, then, whether Compass believes that this narrower language could create something akin to bifurcated-bifurcated scheduling, where a psilocybin-containing FDA-approved prescription medicine would only be automatically rescheduled in the state if it were to contain crystalline polymorph psilocybin. Perhaps Compass believes that this strategy might buy it more time in staving off subsequent new drug applications for psilocybin-containing medications, on top of the patent and regulatory exclusivities it would be afforded in the event of an approval.

At the least, Compass is taking a more self-serving approach than the likes of MAPS/Lykos, which lobbied in New York for broad trigger laws that would automatically reschedule any Schedule I substance upon FDA approval and federal rescheduling, and in Colorado for a law that would do the same for medicines containing MDMA generally.

With competitors like Terran Biosciences threatening to work around the company’s intellectual property moat through the development of alternative forms of psilocybin, might Compass be exploring more exotic forms of exclusivity or ways of delaying competitors? Even if the bill does not effectively block competitors, its ambiguity could lead to lawsuits or the introduction of duplicative bills. It’s unclear if that’s the goal, but the company does appear to be uninterested in removing hurdles that its would-be competitors might face.

The trigger law bill introduced in Virginia, however, leaves no space for confusion: it specifically and only refers to COMP360, Compass’ synthetic psilocybin candidate.

All of this might be entirely unsurprising. We should expect these more conventional for-profit psychedelic drug developers to push only for legislation that aids their own programs and reinforces their own moats.

Instead, people like Porta Sophia’s David Casimir emphasised that this type of lobbying and lawmaking should draw attention and engagement from the public, who should hold lawmakers to account.

Whether its more narrowly-worded Bill will be passed without substantial amendments is yet to be seen, as is whether it will provide any meaningful defence to the company against later new drug applications for psilocybin.

Last week, the House Health and Human Services Committee voted 12-1 to advance the bill. It will now be voted on by the whole House. Should it pass, it will go to the Senate.

Beyond these trigger law Bills, Compass’ broader lobbying agenda is also interesting, especially its involvement in attempting to influence state-regulated psychedelics programs like those envisioned by Bills in California which failed to become law. It is clear that the company will again act in a self-serving manner, aiming to slow the roll on psychedelics decriminalisation and state-regulated psychedelics programs.

Just as with the proliferation of patenting activity in the psychedelics field, covered extensively by journalists like Shayla Love, Compass’ activity here is not necessarily surprising. Rather, it’s worth covering because it reminds us of the arrival of more conventional pharmaceutical industry practices to the psychedelics field, which we should only expect to see more of in the coming months and years. ∎

In a way that is somewhat reminiscent of California’s Research Advisory Panel.
The Bill’s Senate sponsor, for example, holds a Bachelor’s in Music and Drama.