Hill Billy mushrooms 🍄 

A psilocybin batch prepared for testing at Rose City Laboratories in Portland, Ore.Credit…Mason Trinca for The New York Times

The state has pioneered a therapeutic market for psychedelic mushrooms. Researchers are watching with a mix of excitement and unease.

In a carpeted office suite, Alex Beck settled onto a mattress and, under the watch of a trained guide, began chomping through a handful of “Pumpkin Hillbilly” mushrooms.

A Marine Corps veteran who was sexually assaulted during his time in the armed forces, Mr. Beck had long been searching unsuccessfully for a way to put those nightmarish years behind him. Now he was ready for a different kind of journey, a psychedelic trip through the nether regions of his own mind.

Advances in Psychedelic Therapy

Psychedelics — though mostly still illegal — have surged in popularity in recent years as alternative treatments for mental health.

• The fallout from the F.D.A.’s rejection of MDMA-assisted treatment for PTSD worries researchers and experts who fear other psychedelic drugs in the pipeline could be jeopardizedp.

• The F.D.A. declined to approve MDMA therapy, saying there was insufficient data to allow the use of a treatment for PTSD. Veterans and lawmakers had been lobbying for approval of the treatment after an F.D.A. panel had previously rejected it. Here’s what to know.

• The journal Psychopharmacology has retracted three papers about MDMA-assisted therapy based on what the publication said was unethical conduct at one of the study sites where the research took place.

• New research is stirring interest in ibogaine, a powerful psychedelic made from the root of a shrub that is native to Central Africa, as a treatment for opioid addiction.