I’m lying on a mattress in a basement off South Broadway. A mask blocks what little light there is, and a loud humming fills my ears. I know this sounds like the setup of a Liam Neeson movie, but I’m not a hostage—just a woman searching for relief in an unusual place.

It’s been about 20 minutes since I ingested two milligrams of psilocybin, aka magic mushrooms, in the form of a powder mixed into a strawberry smoothie, and if I’m going to start feeling things, now is the time, according to our licensed facilitator. Four other people are traveling on their own internal odysseys alongside me at Vivid Minds Cafe, one of the state’s first licensed healing centers following the passage of Proposition 122 in November 2022.

The building is part coffeeshop (which opened in August 2025), part natural medicine center (early March). Co-owners and spouses Manon Manoeuvre and Jeffrey Parton designed the space this way to make psilocybin-assisted therapy more approachable and affordable. Other Front Range healing centers focus on pricey macrodosing journeys (starting around $1,500), but Vivid Minds gives psychedelic-curious Denverites a chance to wade into the microdosing world in a group setting for just $150.

Until recently, I wouldn’t have counted myself among these curious minds. Thanks to my scary-but-effective D.A.R.E. officers, I’ve been too terrified to take more than two ibuprofen, let alone dabble in mushrooms. But burgeoning research into psilocybin has me rethinking my view on psychedelics. Although the evidence is mixed, some studies show that microdosers experience lower levels of anxiety and depression than their non-microdosing counterparts—a perk that’s especially attractive to me.

I’ve been on a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor for about seven years to manage my formerly crippling anxiety. As a child, I would obsessively watch the clock whenever my parents ran errands, convinced that a lengthy absence meant they’d died in a horrific car crash. My anxiety didn’t disappear with age; it only morphed. Now I lie awake wondering if the swollen lymph node in my neck is cancerous. Most of the time, my anxiety disorder is well-managed with medication, but recently it’s been resurging with a vengeance.

Which is why I’m lying here, a lavender-scented pillow beneath my head and a fleece blanket pulled up to my chin, wondering what will happen next. Will my heart start racing? Will scary hallucinations fill my vision? Will they have to wheel me out on a stretcher?

The post-consumption portion of the session began with a brief yoga flow before we settled onto our mattresses for a sound bath. But as the quartz bowls reverberate around me, I feel…nothing. My heart isn’t pounding, I’m not tasting colors, and I don’t anticipate the need for an ambulance. Microdoses are designed to be subperceptual. To see long-term relief, the science suggests microdosing every two to three days. “It’s not really a one-time thing,” Manoeuvre says. “For most people, it works more as a gentle, ongoing practice rather than a single-session fix.”

When the instructor calls us out of our final shavasana, I remove the mask. I had heard one woman crying softly during the sound bath; beside me, a man snores lightly. “Everyone’s experience can look a little different, so it’s not one-size-fits-all,” Manoeuvre says.

While I didn’t expect one 90-minute microdose session to eradicate my anxiety, my mind did feel different. Well, mostly my mindset. I no longer viewed magic mushrooms as a wild party drug or something to be afraid of. Instead, they cracked open a door I didn’t know was there. One I could choose to walk through, or not. Either way, I didn’t fear what was on the other side.

Read More: I Tried Magic Mushrooms for My Mental Health. Here’s What Happened.

A smoke shop in Denver and another in Fort Collins were both ordered to cease operations this month by city and state regulators. 

The Vibe Smoke Shop at 7530 East Colfax Avenue was ordered Tuesday by the City and County of Denver’s Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection to promptly close its doors and post a notice of summary suspension on the premises until further notice. 

A summary suspension refers to the city immediately suspending the business’s license to operate, even if further proceedings are scheduled to determine its future. 

“This is one of the worst cases of alleged illegal products sales by a business the city has ever uncovered in random inspections of convenience stores in Denver history,” stated Eric Escudero, the DLCP’s Director of Communications, in a press release. “In most licensing discipline cases, the city issues a show cause order where a business can continue to operate while the licensing discipline case plays out. A summary suspension is the most severe form of licensing discipline the city can take and is reserved for only the most serious cases of unlawful activities.”

In Denver, as in the state of Colorado, it is illegal to purchase tobacco, flavored tobacco, alcohol, recreational marijuana, kratom, or psylocibin products under the age of 21. DLCP’s Escudero stated that Vibe Smoke Shop allegedly violated city and state laws by, at different times, selling all of those items to minors.

Alleged violations by Vibe Smoke Shop date back to June 2025, according to the summary suspension order provided by DLCP. It was then that the outlet reportedly sold cigarettes and other tobacco/nicotine products to a 19-year-old person. That 19-year-old was working as part of an undercover operation to catch such activity. 

Vibe Smoke Shop’s ownership was cited for the infraction, according to the order. But the monetary penalty for the citation has not been paid and is in collections, per DLCP. 

Later that year, a Denver Police Department school resource officer was reportedly told by a student that other underage students were buying marijuana products from the same smoke shop and were re-selling them on school grounds throughout the day, “especially during lunch hours,” as stated in the order. 

Denver PD and the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment joined DLCP for further undercover operations and enforcements. Meanwhile, a parent of an underage Vibe customer also complained to authorities that his 17-year-old son and his son’s friend were able to purchase kratom products with a fake ID and, at times, without an ID at all. That parent said both boys required addiction treatment services as a result of their kratom use. 

In March of this year, another complaint was received about the business hosting after-hours parties for minors, as alleged in the DLCP order. When phoned by a DLCP inspector, Vibe’s ownership reportedly refused inspection of the business and hung up, per the order. An unannounced inspection was nevertheless conducted less than a week later, and a back room in the business was allegedly found to have cases of beer and alcoholic lemonade, bottles of beer and liquor in the refrigerator, and more than a dozen hookahs. Vibe ownership did not have a liquor license, per DLCP.

That inspection, and later ones, uncovered numerous non-compliant or improperly labeled marijuana, kratom and mushroom product, according to the DLCP order. A subsequent Notice of Violation from the health department determined some of those products “constituted an imminent health hazard” and ordered them destroyed.

The DLCP scheduled a hearing on June 26 in the case. Then, Vibe Smoke Shop ownership will have the chance to explain why its business license should not further suspended or revoked entirely, as explained by DLCP’s order.

According to the Colorado Secretary of State’s database, Vibe Smoke Shop LLC is owned by an Aurora resident, Desalegn Berhane Weldegebriel. CBS Colorado left a voicemail message at the only publicly listed phone number for Weldegebriel requesting comment. 

In Fort Collins, the Smokin’ Genie was ordered May 20 to close at the end of the month. An investigation by Fort Collins Police Services and the Colorado Attorney General’s Office found that the business did not properly label its kratom products and allegedly sold kratom to a person younger than 21 years of age. 

Smokin’ Genie’s owner, Ambreen Vazir of Florida, reached a settlement with the state. The business must cease operations on May 31 and destroy any remaining inventory. Vazir is also banned from conducting “any business in Colorado related to the advertising, marketing, cultivation, processing, manufacturing, handling, labeling, packaging, distribution, and/or sale of Restricted Products,” as stated in the settlement agreement. If Vazir chooses to re-open such a Colorado business after May 31, 2031, he must pay the attorney general’s office $20,000. 

Furthermore, if Vazir’s future business violates state law regarding the import, manufacture, storage, assembly, handling, distribution, or sale of restricted products, the agreement states Vazir will be penalized a total of $200,000. 

The Colorado Attorney General’s Office stated in a press release that its settlement with Vazir is the first action it has taken under recently passed legislation which regulates the sale of kratom products in Colorado.

CBS Colorado was unable to reach Vazir for comment.