Ted Turner is the second largest personal land proprietor within the Usa. He not too long ago opened up 4 of his properties to friends who need to expertise nature tourism on his ranches in New Mexico.Ted Turner Reserves
Most individuals, once they hear the identify Ted Turner, instantly consider the outspoken businessman who based CNN, the all-news channel primarily based out of Atlanta. Few know him as one of many nice conservationists of our time: A person who has given tons of of tens of millions of his private wealth to avoid wasting endangered species and shield huge tracts of land so future generations can take pleasure in them.
On a latest journey to New Mexico, I, too, had a crash course in attending to know a complete different facet of the larger-than-life character, who amongst manydifferent targets, made it a private mission to avoid wasting the American bison from extinction. (He now owns the most important personal herd on the earth with greater than 50,000 heads).
I used to be a part of an intimate group of conservationists, eco-luxury journey advisers, biologists and native politicians who had been invited to spend a number of days touring three of the 4 properties in New Mexico which might be a part of Ted Turner Reserves, the regenerative-tourism division of Turner Enterprises, whose sole objective is to attach friends with nature and to point out them that personal lands can play a vital function as guardians of imperilled species.
Advertisement
My keep begins within the tiny city of Fact or Penalties, a reputation I couldn’t get my head round (nor, apparently, can the locals who’ve shortened it to “T or C”). There’s a story right here. Initially referred to as Scorching Springs (as a result of geothermal waters bubble to the floor), the city’s forebears within the Fifties determined, as a part of a radio contest, to call it after a well-liked quiz present.
The locals say it began as a joke however the identify caught and, in 2013, Turner purchased the Sierra Grande Lodge & Spa, which is by far the nicest resort on this sleepy hamlet. It capabilities as a launching pad for friends, like me, to have a soak and therapeutic massage earlier than driving to Turner’s sibling ranches – the Ladder and Armendaris – that are positioned in a hauntingly lovely and unforgiving panorama that has slowly been nurtured again to its pure state.
The place to journey in 2023 when you care about local weather change
Turner’s ranches are thought of eco-labs.CHCone/Ted Turner Reserves
A few years in the past, Mark Twain famously stated: “Purchase land, they’re not making it anymore.” Turner adopted that recommendation and at present ranks because the second-largest personal landowner in the USA with 14 ranches within the U.S. and three in Argentina with a complete land mass of greater than two million acres (to place that in perspective, it’s roughly the identical dimension as Yellowstone Nationwide Park).
As Mike Phillips, director of the Turner Endangered Species Fund, explains, “Ted’s lands are scattered all through a dizzying array of ecological settings, from lengthy leaf forests within the south, to the grasslands of the Nice Plains, the mountain ranges of the Northern Rockies, to the desert grasslands of the southwest. And a variety of settings in between. It’s that wealthy variety that makes Ted’s lands, I might argue, an important assemblage of personal conservation lands on the earth.”
Advertisement
I’m picked up exterior Sierra Grande in a black SUV with a “Save Every little thing” bumper sticker, a tagline that sums up the mission behind Turner’s nature tourism group, which provides luxurious – however nonetheless rustic and comfy – lodging in unspoiled, protected environments. What it means, says Jade McBride, president of Ted Turner Reserves, “is that Ted believes each species on Earth issues.
“All of us right here take that motto to coronary heart,” says McBride, who previous to becoming a member of Turner, was managing director of Montana’s five-star Ranch at Rock Creek, and earlier than that, was actions director of Amangiri, a luxurious retreat hidden deep within the Utah desert. “It’s not nearly restoring forests and streams, or historical past and tradition, it’s additionally about saving us, the human race. By inviting folks into these buildings, into his houses, Ted desires to point out future generations we will go away these properties higher than we discovered them.”
Our first cease is the Ladder, a 156,000-acre ranch Turner purchased in 1992, which is now open to friends, who can keep at Turner’s four-bedroom dwelling, the Nation Home, embellished by his then spouse Jane Fonda. It’s not too long ago been renovated however stored loads of Fonda’s retro southwestern aptitude.
The Decibel: A hit story in Indigenous-led conservation
Vermejo, Turner’s largest property.Ted Turner Reserves
We ditch the SUV and get into an ATV to discover the property, positioned within the foothills of the Black Vary, mountains that type the jap ridge of Gila Wilderness, the world’s first designated wilderness created in 1924 on the urging of Aldo Leopold, thought of the daddy of wildlife ecology.
Advertisement
Information Ken Stinnett is aware of we’re determined to identify some bison so we start the bumpy journey over what quantities to a meagre portion of the five hundred miles of highway on the ranch. The ranch crew have eliminated miles of fence that used to cordon off the land so animals – starting from elk, pronghorn, deer, turkeys, bears and quail – have free rein.
Stinnett explains that friends of the Ladder can take guided excursions to search out wildlife (which additionally embody varied species of migratory neo-tropical birds from Mexico and South America), view vivid petroglyphs made by the Apache and Spaniards, and go to Indian Battle battle websites, mining-era ghost cities and rugged hilltops the place the prehistoric Native People, the Mimbres, as soon as lived.
As we’re winding our method by canyons and streams, we lastly spot a bunch of about 50 bison gathered round a watering gap. Based on Stinnett, bison are sometimes divided by intercourse, with females and calves in a single herd and males in one other. We’re fortunate as a result of this group is mamas with wee ones, who look minuscule in contrast with dad and mom who stand as much as six toes tall (1.8 metres) and weigh about 900 kilos (400 kg). Stinnett says they’re a gorgeous, if barely ornery animal, they usually do look disdainfully again at us, daring us to come back nearer. We strive. They promptly depart. However our small group is thrilled to see the most important land animal in North America so up shut.
Ranch crew have eliminated miles of fence that used to cordon off the land so animals have free rein.Ted Turner Reserves
Turner’s ranches are thought of eco-labs and on Ladder there’s a Mexican grey wolf restoration challenge (one male wandered off the ranch onto public land and was shot a few week earlier than I arrived) in addition to a Bolson tortoise reintroduction challenge. We meet a very pleasant tortoise named Smitty, who got here out of his burrow to say hiya. He’s a teenager on condition that, as Stinnett explains, the Bolson (the most important tortoise in North America) can stay as much as 130 years. The work Turner and his workforce have accomplished is critical as a result of the large turtle of the desert has not been seen in these elements for a number of thousand years.
Because the afternoon attracts to an in depth, we head to Armendaris, the 360,000-acre ranch Turner purchased in 1994. The very first thing I discover is that the ranch signal is riddled with bullet holes. I ask Stinnett why and he shrugs, “Each check in New Mexico must be shot.”
Advertisement
We wind our method down a dust highway for a number of miles earlier than pulling up in entrance of Turner’s 6,000-square-foot adobe lodge, one he constructed with Fonda, with a spectacular view of the Fra Cristobal mountains, which loom over this part of the Chihuahuan Desert.
Turner’s home is grand, however not grandiose, and its thick adobe partitions – the color of desert sand – mix seamlessly into the panorama, which is stuffed with prickly cholla cactus, scrub, mesquite and plains of black grama grass. Cretaceous interval fossils have been found on this former sea ground, together with the bones of a triceratops. Slicing by Turner’s land is a path the Spanish conquistadors referred to as Jornada del Muerto – the Journey of the Useless Man – due to how unforgiving this a part of the state was.
Inside the house, the decor celebrates New Mexico artists with museum-quality Native American pottery, baskets, rugs and Western work. Like on the Ladder, there are animal restoration packages at Armendaris. Phillips says one they’re notably happy with, the desert bighorn sheep challenge, has performed a key function in serving to to revive the variety of these majestic animals, leading to them being taken off the endangered species record.
The sport room at Vermejo.Ted Turner Reserves
Along with the bighorns that stay within the foothills of the Fra Cristobals, Armendaris is dwelling to bison, pronghorn, oryx, javelina, mule deer and the multiple million Mexican free-tailed bats who migrate to the Jornada lava flows (on Turner’s ranch) the place they offer start to their infants. Stinnett says the enormous lava caves operate as a “bat maternity ward” and at nightfall they swoop out en masse to hunt for meals for his or her offspring. Sadly, I used to be not capable of see the “bat present,” which happens from March to October.
Whereas Turner, 84, could also be one of many world’s most beneficiant conservationists (he donated US$1-billion to the United Nations in 1997), he’s additionally a capitalist. And McBride says Ted Turner Reserves is a important a part of his succession plan. 5 years in the past, the media legend was recognized with Lewy physique dementia, and he’s decided to do the whole lot he can, with the time he has left, to make sure his ranches are solvent. “Eco-tourism, or nature tourism, is only one extra method for Ted to succeed in that aim.”
Advertisement
On my final evening at Armendaris, we’re served a scrumptious New Mexican meal of posole (a wealthy stew) and corn chowder shooters, Navajo fry bread, wild recreation meatballs, trout salsa, oven-roasted qual knots, lamb lollipops and for dessert, tres leches cake chased down with a glowing wine, Gruet, from a close-by vineyard. Sated, to bursting, I then head to the Nice Room, which runs the size of the again of the home, to observe the sundown. The limitless sky, with the Fra Cristobals within the foreground, takes my breath away. The colors don’t simply change because the solar goes down, they soften into one another, first purple, then pink, a rose-coloured teal, a fragile inexperienced and eventually a delicate yellow, rimmed with purple, fades to a midnight blue.
In that second I perceive completely why, as McBride says, Armendaris holds such a particular place in Turner’s coronary heart. There’s a mysticism right here, a majesty that makes mere people really feel comparatively insignificant.
The Jornada Bat Caves at Armendaris.Ted Turner Reserves
McBride says what makes Ted Turner Reserves so distinctive as a journey and eco-education vacation spot is its sheer scale. “No different resort property, eco or in any other case, has the sort of land mass these experiences have. The most typical factor I hear our friends say after spending time on these properties is, ‘I can’t consider how a lot I’ve discovered. I really feel like I’ve gone again in time.’”
Within the coming months, the Flying D – one other Turner ranch in Montana – is rumoured to be opening to friends. After I ask, McBride solely smiles and says, “Ted believes we have now to share these properties with folks, as a result of it is going to make higher people out of them.”
When you go
Advertisement
Fly to Albuquerque or El Paso. I flew into one and out of the opposite. They’re about equi-distance from Sierra Grande.
Lodging: The Ladder, sleeps eight, with costs that begin at US$2,500 an evening (for as much as 4 friends) with every extra visitor US$500 an evening. The price features a personal chef and actions; Sierra Grand Lodge & Spa, room costs vary from US$350 in excessive season (double occupancy) to US$185 in off-season; The Hacienda at Armendaris, costs begin at US$3,500 for as much as4 friends, with every extra visitor US$500 an evening. The price consists of personal chef and actions; Vermejo, in northern New Mexico, is Turner’s largest property (560,000 acres) with an in depth vary of lodging together with the Costilla Creek Fishing Lodge, Turner Home, Casa Grande and varied cottages. Visitor rooms begin at US$1,200 in off-season (double occupancy) and go as much as US$2,000 an evening in excessive season. Varmejo’s cottages (three to 5 bedrooms) are US$2,000 to US$9,600 an evening; and unique buyouts of the Costilla Creek Fishing Lodge or the Casa Grande manor mansion begin at US$10,500 and go as much as US$18,000.
To not miss: Jornada Bat Caves at Armendaris. The picture of 1000’s of free-tailed bats erupting from dormant lava tubes at twilight is one thing you gained’t neglect. Whereas the bats are searching, they too, are being hunted by raptors, Swainson’s hawks and different predators. The bats occupy the caves from March by October.
The author was a visitor of Ted Turner Reserves, which didn’t overview or approve this text.
Preserve updated with the weekly Sightseer e-newsletter. Enroll at this time.
COUNSELOR, N.M. (AP) — On a Tuesday in March, Billton Werito drove his son Amari toward his house in Counselor, New Mexico, navigating the bumpy dirt road that winds through a maze of natural gas pipelines, wellheads and water tanks. Amari should have been in school, but a bout of nausea and a dull headache kept him from class.
“It happens a lot,” Amari explained from the backseat, glancing up from his Nintendo Switch. The symptoms usually show up when the sixth grader smells an odor of “rotten egg with propane” that rises from nearby natural gas wells and wafts over Lybrook Elementary School, where he and some 70 other Navajo students attend class. His little brother often misses school for the same reason.
“They just keep getting sick,” Amari’s father, Billton, said. “I have to take them out of class because of the headaches. Especially the younger one, he’s been throwing up and won’t eat.” The symptoms are putting the kids at risk of falling further behind in school.
Lybrook sits in the heart of New Mexico’s San Juan Basin, a major oil and gas deposit that, along with the Permian Basin in the state’s southeast, is supplying natural gas that meets much of the nation’s electricity demand.
Advertisement
The gas pulled from tens of thousands of wells in New Mexico has reaped huge benefits for the entire country. Natural gas has become a go-to fuel for power plants from coast to coast, sometimes replacing dirtier coal-fired plants and, by extension, improving air quality. Locally, oil and gas companies employ thousands of workers, often in areas with few other opportunities, all while boosting the state’s budget with billions in royalty payments.
A view of natural gas pipes installed above ground in a field at a well pad in Counselor, N.M., Navajo Nation, on Tuesday March 11, 2025. (Nadav Soroker/Searchlight New Mexico via AP)
Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS/Nadav Soroker
But those benefits may come at a cost for thousands of students in New Mexico whose schools sit near oil and gas pipelines, wellheads and flare stacks. An Associated Press analysis of state and federal data found 694 oil and gas wells with new or active permits within a mile of a school in the state. This means around 29,500 students in 74 schools and preschools potentially face exposure to noxious emissions, since extraction from the ground can release unhealthy fumes.
A measurable effect on students
Advertisement
At Lybrook, where Amari just finished sixth grade, fewer than 6% of students are proficient at math, and only a fifth meet state standards for science and reading proficiency.
Other factors could help explain students’ poor achievement. Poverty rates are higher in some areas with high levels of gas development, and students at rural schools overall tend to face challenges that can adversely affect academic performance. AP’s analysis found two-thirds of the schools within a mile of an oil or gas well are low-income, and the population is around 24% Native American and 45% Hispanic.
But research has found student learning is directly harmed by air pollution from fossil fuels — even when socioeconomic factors are taken into account.
The risks go far beyond New Mexico. An AP analysis of data from the Global Oil and Gas Extraction Tracker found over 1,000 public schools across 13 states that are within five miles of a major oil or gas field. Major fields are collections of wells that produce the highest amount of energy in a state.
“This kind of air pollution has a real, measurable effect on students,” said Mike Gilraine, an economics professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, who studies connections between air quality and student performance.
Advertisement
In 2024, Gilraine co-wrote a study showing student test scores were closely associated with air contamination. Each measured increase in PM2.5, a type of pollution created from the burning of fossil fuels, was associated with a significant decline in student test scores, Gilraine found. Conversely, researchers have documented that reductions in air pollution have led to higher test scores and fewer absences.
“To me, the surprise was certainly the magnitude of the effects” of air pollution on students, Gilraine said. “It’s hard to find a similar factor that would have such an impact on schools nationwide.”
America’s shift to natural gas has resulted in substantial increases in student achievement nationwide, Gilraine’s research shows, as it has displaced dirtier coal and led to cleaner air on the whole. But there has been little data on air quality across New Mexico, even as it has become one of the most productive states in the nation for natural gas. State regulators have installed only 20 permanent air monitors, most in areas without oil or gas production.
Independent researchers have extensively studied the air quality near schools in at least two locations in the state, however. One is Lybrook, which sits within a mile of 17 active oil and gas wells.
In 2024, scientists affiliated with Princeton and Northern Arizona universities conducted an air-monitoring study at the school, finding that levels of pollutants — including benzene, a cancer-causing byproduct of natural gas production that is particularly harmful to children — were spiking during school hours, to nearly double the levels known to cause chronic or acute health effects.
Advertisement
That research followed a 2021 health impact assessment conducted with support from several local nonprofits and foundations, which analyzed the effects of the area’s oil and gas development on residents.
The findings were startling: More than 90% of people surveyed suffered from sinus problems. Nosebleeds, shortness of breath and nausea were widespread. The report attributed the symptoms to the high levels of pollutants that researchers found — including, near Lybrook, hydrogen sulfide, a compound that gives off the sulfur smell that Amari Werito associated with his headaches.
Those studies helped confirm what many community members already knew, said Daniel Tso, a community leader who served on the committee that oversaw the 2021 health impact assessment.
“The children and the grandchildren need a safe homeland,” Tso said during an interview in March, standing outside a cluster of gas wells within a mile of Lybrook Elementary.
“You smell that?” he said, nodding towards a nearby wellhead, which smelled like propane. “That’s what the kids at the school are breathing in. I’ve had people visiting this area from New York. They spend five minutes here and say, ‘Hey, I got a headache.’ And the kids are what, six hours a day at the school breathing this?”
Advertisement
Lybrook school officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Despite risks, oil and gas can pump money into schools
Researchers have identified similar air quality problems in New Mexico’s southeast.
In 2023, a team of scientists from a coalition of universities conducted a detailed, yearlong study of the air in Loving, a small town in the Permian Basin. Local air quality, researchers found, was worse than in downtown Los Angeles, and the tested air contained the fifth-highest level of measured ozone contamination in the U.S.
The source of the ozone — a pollutant that’s especially hazardous to children — was the area’s network of gas wells and related infrastructure. Some of that infrastructure sits within a half-mile of a campus that houses Loving’s elementary, middle and high schools.
Advertisement
A small group of residents has spoken out about the area’s air quality, saying it has caused respiratory problems and other health issues. But for most locals, any concerns about pollution are outweighed by the industry’s economic benefits.
Representatives of the oil and gas industry have claimed the air quality studies themselves are not trustworthy.
“There needs to be a robust study to actually answer these questions,” said Andrea Felix, vice president of regulatory affairs for the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association (NMOGA). Felix said other sources of emissions, such as cars and trucks, are likely a larger source of air quality problems near wells.
“Companies follow the best available science” for well placement and emissions controls, Felix said, and also contribute huge amounts of money to the state’s education budget. In the most recent fiscal year, oil and gas revenue supported $1.7 billion in K-12 spending in New Mexico, according to a NMOGA report.
Officials with Loving Municipal Schools are also skeptical of the alarm over the wells. Loving Superintendent Lee White said the school district used funds from the oil and gas industry to pay for a new wing at the elementary school, a science lab for students, turf on the sports field and training and professional development for teachers. He said the industry’s contributions to state coffers can’t be ignored.
Advertisement
“Are we willing to give that up because people say our air is not clean?” he said during an interview. “It’s just as clean as anywhere else.”
As White spoke, a drill rig worked a couple of miles east of Loving’s elementary school while parents poured into the gymnasium to watch kindergartners collect their diplomas. White touted the district’s success, saying the elementary school scores above state averages for reading, math and science proficiency, while Loving’s high school students far outpace the state average for college and career readiness.
But environmental groups, attorneys and residents continue to push for limits on drilling near schools.
Those efforts saw a boost in 2023, when New Mexico State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard issued an executive order prohibiting new oil and gas leases on state-owned land within a mile of schools.
Industry representatives decried the move, saying it added potentially insurmountable costs and barriers to drilling operators. However, AP’s analysis found that relatively few wells would be impacted even if the rule applied to all of New Mexico; only around 1% of oil and gas wells in the state are within a mile of a school.
Advertisement
In the years since, residents of areas where exploration is heavy have lobbied for legislation prohibiting gas operations within a mile of schools, regardless of land status. That bill died in committee during the most recent session of the New Mexico legislature.
Advocates have also sued the state over an alleged lack of pollution controls. That lawsuit is currently pending in state court.
____
AP journalist Sharon Lurye contributed to this report from New Orleans.
____
Advertisement
The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Crystal Romero had battled darkness for over a decade, struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression after a long career in the New Mexico Army National Guard. She was treated with antidepressants but didn’t find solace and healing until she was introduced to psilocybin mushrooms in Jamaica.
The Albuquerque mother of three believes the use of psychedelic drugs — at low doses and in a controlled environment — can do tremendous good for people in New Mexico, a state that long has seen high rates of poverty and addiction. Now she wants others to have access to psilocybin-assisted therapy.
“Working with psilocybin has really allowed me to sit with my grief,” Romero said. “Depression doesn’t have to consume your life. I was able to reconnect with myself, reconnect with kids, reconnect with my community.”
Advertisement
Under new legislation, New Mexico is following the path of Oregon and Colorado in preparing to roll out a tightly regulated medical psilocybin program by late 2027. Proponents of psilocybin, the naturally occurring psychoactive ingredient in “magic mushrooms,” celebrated in April when Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed the legislation allowing the program into law.
Some studies on psilocybin-aided treatment have been promising, they point out, and there is a new wave of interest in popular culture.
The practice of microdosing, or using very small amounts of a psychedelic for treatment, has hit the mainstream. News outlets recently reported Dr. Casey Means, President Donald Trump’s pick for surgeon general, suggested in a newsletter her use of magic mushrooms helped her find a romantic partner.
New Mexico’s Senate Bill 219, known as the Medical Psilocybin Act, establishes a regulated program for the medical use of psilocybin to treat qualified medical conditions such as major treatment-resistant depression, PTSD, substance use disorder and end-of-life care. It soared through both the House and Senate with wide bipartisan support.
The program, set to be fully launched by Dec. 31, 2027, calls for psilocybin to be administered to patients by a New Mexico-licensed health care provider in an approved clinical setting.
Advertisement
State Rep. Angel Charley, D-Acoma, outside the San José de la Laguna Mission Church in Laguna Pueblo in May 2023. Charley noted in her speech about the bill on the Senate floor that psychedelic healing is no novel concept for Indigenous communities in the Southwest. “This medicine is not groundbreaking,” she said. “It is only new to Western modalities of healing.”
Advertisement
Michael Benanav/Searchlight New Mexico
Psychedelic healing is no novel concept for Indigenous communities in the Southwest, state Sen. Angel Charley, D-Acoma, noted earlier this year when she addressed colleagues about the bill on the Senate floor.
“This medicine is not groundbreaking,” she said. “It is only new to Western modalities of healing.”
Charley recognized legendary Oaxacan curandera María Sabina during her floor speech.
Advertisement
“And so I ask those voting today that we carry this knowledge forward,” she said. “This is something that our communities have offered people for hundreds of years.”
Guardrails for safe delivery
Oregon and Colorado established their medical psilocybin programs by way of ballot initiatives, so New Mexico became the first state in the U.S. to approve a program through legislation. According to the online network Psychedelic Alpha, legislation related to “psychedelic medicines” has been introduced in at least 15 states.
Still illegal under federal law, however, psilocybin is listed as a Schedule 1 drug — defined as a substance “with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”
Advocates and lawmakers have pointed to the stiff guardrails New Mexico’s program would have to prevent abuse of the substance.
Sen. Craig Brandt, R- Rio Rancho, one of the sponsors of SB 19, said, “I think we put the guardrails in there the right way to where it’s not like the medical marijuana program. It’s a very limited application. So, there’s very few things that it can be used for.”
Advertisement
Sen. Craig Brandt, R-Rio Rancho, speaks on the Senate floor in February 2024. Brandt was one of the sponsors of Senate Bill 19, which was approved with wide bipartisan support.
New Mexican file photo
Advertisement
He noted patients could only receive psilocybin treatment in an approved clinical setting, without an option of taking the substance home.
Psilocybin research has shown benefits for those struggling with PTSD, Brandt said, adding lawmakers heard testimony from veterans in committee hearings.
“I do think New Mexico has a chance to do this somewhat differently, with more integrity. I would put it that way,” said Janine Sagert, a retired psychologist in Santa Fe who has advocated for psilocybin since the 1970s. “I’m very hopeful about that.”
Those who have advocated for New Mexico’s medical psilocybin program are quick to point out treatments have nothing to do with hallucinating or getting high, and magic mushrooms are not legal for recreational use in the state.
Advertisement
Adele Getty — director of the nonprofit organizing The Enchanted State, a September conference on the psychedelic movement at the Lensic Performing Arts Center, believes this is a good idea.
“Oregon did a massive [decriminalization]. That was not beneficial for Oregon; Portland in particular,” Getty said. “I think Colorado is doing a better job in terms of implementation. And Oregon has actually learned and, I would say, upgraded its whole system.”
Despite the popularity of SB 19, a handful of state lawmakers opposed the program.
“My opposition to [SB] 219 is strictly due to the very little we know about this drug,” Rep. Luis Terrazas, R-Santa Clara, wrote in a text message. “While I am always supportive of therapies to help alleviate symptoms of depression and PTSD, I was not comfortable with the information provided in the debate to support it.”
Still, Terrazas hopes the therapy will be safe for those who use it and that it “truly provides relief where traditional drugs have failed.”
Advertisement
“Working with psilocybin has really allowed me to sit with my grief,” Crystal Romero said. “Depression doesn’t have to consume your life. I was able to reconnect with myself, reconnect with kids, reconnect with my community.”
Gabriela Campos/The New Mexican
Advertisement
How the program will take shape
SB 19 calls for the establishment of the Medical Psilocybin Advisory Board, with nine members “knowledgeable about the medical use of psilocybin,” including at least one who is enrolled in a tribal nation, one veteran and one behavioral health advocate.
Applications will open soon for this panel, which will be tasked with recommending patient qualifications and assisting the state Department of Health in developing, monitoring and evaluating best practices for producers and clinicians.
Aspects of the program will take shape over the next two years with input from stakeholders, said Dominick Zurlo, director of the Health Department’s Center for Medical Cannabis; the agency’s title will soon be expanded to include the word “psilocybin.”
“That’s what these next two years are about, about making sure that we are setting up the best requirements for those providers in the clinics,” Zurlo said.
Advertisement
Brandt noted patients will spend a substantial amount of time with a clinician while treatment is administered. For proponents like Romero, this is an important aspect of the program.
Before her first experience with the treatment in Jamaica, Romero worked with a coach to prepare. There also were people at her side to coach her through the treatment, she said.
Crystal Romero holds a small glass mushroom made for her by her friend after New Mexico’s Senate Bill 219, known as the Medical Psilocybin Act, was signed into law this year. The program, set to be fully launched by Dec. 31, 2027, calls for psilocybin to be administered to patients by a New Mexico-licensed health care provider in an approved clinical setting.
Advertisement
Gabriela Campos/The New Mexican
The Health Department is now developing the process for implementing the program, including treatment protocols, safety guidelines, clinician and producer training requirements and data-collection methods to evaluate the program’s effectiveness.
State funding will be funneled toward the nascent program, starting with $1 million in fiscal year 2026 to add new employees to the Health Department, Zurlo said.
Advertisement
The psilocybin law calls for a new Medical Psilocybin Treatment Fund to aid qualified low-income patients and a Medical Psilocybin Research Fund to support studies by universities and health care providers.
The University of New Mexico’s Health Sciences Center launched new psilocybin-related research last summer, including a study on RE104 — a novel compound related to psilocybin — for postpartum depression.
The Health Department will be responsible for overseeing producers in New Mexico, as psilocybin administered by clinicians must be cultivated and produced within the state.
“We need to ensure it is actually grown and produced [here] so we are not putting anybody at risk on a federal level with crossing state lines,” Zurlo said.
A Legislative Finance Committee analysis found an estimated 1,748 New Mexicans might use the program each year, based on numbers of patients in Oregon, a state with a 5-year-old medical psilocybin program.
Advertisement
“That’s going to depend a lot on how many clinics we end up permitting,” Zurlo said. “We’re really going to be evaluating that over the next two years to help determine how many can be served within those first several years.”
It is difficult to predict how many providers will become certified to participate, he said. Oregon, with a population about twice as large as New Mexico’s, had around 32 clinics permitted in its program’s first year, he noted.
Romero, who was raised around the state in Taos, Las Vegas and Mora, is optimistic about the program. “It’s really going to bring some healing in the state,” she said. “If we can rebuild ourselves, we can rebuild our communities.”
In the nearly two months since New Mexico head coach Eric Olen and staff have been in charge, they’ve rebuilt the Lobos roster by adding 13 names to next season’s team.
With the summer recruiting circuit getting underway, Olen and staff have begun looking at their next targets in the high school class beginning with 2026 names. A rising senior now on New Mexico’s radar is forward Trevon Carter-Givens. Playing for Team WhyNot in front of college coaches during the May viewing period, Carter-Givens averaged eight points and seven rebounds per game while helping his team to a 3-0 record.
Following the weekend, his recruitment continued to expand with offers from Creighton, TCU and New Mexico coming in. This followed offers from Florida State, Seton Hall, UNLV and San Francisco in April.
Carter-Givens played his first two high school seasons at Templeton High School in California’s Central Coast, a school with less than 800 enrolled. He made the move to Southern California Academy prior to his junior season, pairing up with a team that is primarily made up of top recruits. He’s settled into his role as a big man and continues to show off his improvements over the past year.
Advertisement
Eric Olen’s initial roster at New Mexico is heavy with players plucked from the transfer portal, as has become a normal procedure across the country, even more so in the case of a new head coach left with virtually nothing on the roster. The Lobos have signed three high school recruits for 2025, Uriah Tenette, Jake Hall and Sir Marius Jones. Tenette and Hall were previously signed with play for Olen at UC San Diego while Jones was headed for UC Irvine but is following assistant coach Michael Wilder to Albuquerque.
Eight of New Mexico’s commitments over the past two months have come from the transfer portal with Chris Howell and Milos Vincentic, starting the run of commitments while following Olen and staff over from UC San Diego. New Mexico’s other two commitments have come from different paths. Forward Antonio Chol averaged 20 points and eight rebounds per game this past season at Garden City Community College after starting his career at Rutgers. New Mexico’s newest commitment, Tomislav Buljan, comes to the college game after several professional seasons in Europe. The 6-foot-8, 22-year-old Buljan is a native of Croatia and has four seasons of eligibility.
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tgam/2WY3P6CSAZFVTBENEZTXQZA3U4.JPG "When conservation and capitalism collide: A visit to New Mexico’s Ted Turner Reserves")
:format(jpeg)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tgam/W4WKBQNCXZEJPPACUGEOHNJQUU.JPG)
:format(jpeg)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tgam/4ODGA4NPSZFC3GJG7D3KDSXBZI.JPG)
:format(jpeg)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tgam/SFMKBHTIMZGBDN6M3VOMQOWWEA.jpg)
:format(jpeg)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tgam/CCS2TX4LYJFZFGXXPPC4UOWEU4.JPG)
:format(jpeg)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tgam/HXDZQ2GAI5DWLGDXFFXJFY3VBY.JPG)
