10th Circuit says court should not have blocked Utah psychedelic mushroom prosecution

The 10th Circuit overturned a federal injunction Monday that had blocked Utah's criminal prosecution of Bridger Jensen, founder of the Provo-based spiritual group Singularism, over religious use of psilocybin mushrooms. Police raided Jensen's center in 2024 and seized 450 grams of the compound after sending in an undercover officer.

Judge Robert Bacharach, writing for the panel, said the lower court should have let the prosecution proceed in state court rather than block it federally, citing the Younger abstention doctrine. The court also rejected Jensen's First Amendment argument, finding Utah's medical exemptions for psilocybin aren't comparable to Singularism's unsupervised religious use.

The panel declined to rule on whether Utah's own Religious Freedom Restoration Act protects Jensen, leaving that question to the district court. Jensen's attorney called it a reasonable outcome, since the strongest claim remains alive; prosecutors have not yet refiled charges.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.