Politics
AOC Touts The ‘Promise’ Of Psychedelics To Treat Mental Health Conditions As Reform Amendments Advance In Congress
Bipartisan members of Congress are celebrating the House’s passage last week of amendments to extend a psychedelics research effort at the Department of Defense (DOD) for an additional six years and to codify provisions of a psychedelics executive order signed by President Donald Trump earlier this year.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) told Marijuana Moment that “one of the things that’s so important about the promise of psilocybin specifically is that it is one of the only substances that has shown early promise in treatment-resistant PTSD.”
“There are so many people that have tried every single path available to them in order to get the healthcare that they need and they have not been able to access that,” she said.
The newly approved psychedelics amendments are now attached to the House-passed version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2027, though it’s not yet clear how the Senate will address the issue or if the reforms will be enacted into law.
Ocasio-Cortez has long pushed for psychedelics and broader drug policy reform, saying she has been “introducing and supportive of these psilocybin measures—everything from allowing the study to descheduling in the NDAA for my entire time in Congress.”
To that point, she twice filed amendments designed to free up research into the therapeutic potential of psychedelics that were defeated on the House floor.
In 2022, Ocasio-Cortez led a separate NDAA amendment to require DOD to study the therapeutic potential of psilocybin and MDMA for military service members.
Earlier this year, the congresswoman argued during a hearing that placing substances like marijuana and LSD in Schedule I runs counter to evidence showing their medical potential, hinders research and is associated with criminal penalties that haven’t effectively prevented harms from substance misuse.
Rep. Lou Correa (D-CA), meanwhile, told Marijuana Moment last week that he is “hearing a lot about psychedelics.”
“Everybody’s using them. Professional guys, you know,” he said. “Everywhere I talk about psychedelics, it’s like, ‘Yeah, we microdose.’ Everybody microdoses. Professionals. Not kids from the hood, but professionals.”
Correa, who leads the Congressional Psychedelics Advancing Therapies (PATH) Caucus said he faced an internal “conflict” on last week’s vote on the NDAA. Despite supporting the psychedelics provisions that are now attached to the bill, “I had to vote against the NDAA because it’s $1.2 trillion” for war-related efforts he does not support. “My God.”
“In general, anything that’s for common sense war on drugs reform is good,” the congressman said. “Anything that goes the other way, which is going back to the war on drugs from the 70s, in my opinion is a big mistake.”
Rep. Jack Bergman (R-MI), who co-leads the psychedelics caucus with Correa, told Marijuana Moment that the NDAA amendments represent incremental progress on the issue that will help build momentum toward broader reform.
“Let’s put it this way: Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it didn’t fall in that day,” he said. “So every little step you can advance forward, if you take down one obstacle—which are natural—a time, you’re going to get a cascade effect.”
One of the approved measures, sponsored by Bergman and Correa, along with Reps. Morgan Luttrell (R-TX), Derrick Van Orden (R-WI), Mike Ezell (R-MS), Troy Carter (D-LA), Morgan McGarvey (D-KY), Seth Moulton (D-MA), Sarah Elfreth (D MD) and Michael Rulli (R-OH), added language to the bill expanding DOD studies on psychedelics that were first authorized under the earlier 2024 NDAA.
That program, signed into law by then-President Joe Biden, directed DOD to establish a process by which active duty service members with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or traumatic brain injury could participate in clinical trials involving psilocybin, MDMA, ibogaine, 5-MeO-DMT and “qualified plant-based alternative therapies.”
As enacted, it only required the secretary of defense to issue updated reports on progress within one year of the law passing and then annually for three years after that. The new amendment would replace “three years” in the law with “nine years.” It also specifies that DOD would have to “extend the performance of research conducted using funding awarded under this section to September 30, 2033.”
The previously enacted legislation set aside $10 million to fund the military psychedelic studies.
Last month, the House Armed Services Committee approved its version of NDAA and an attached report that calls on military officials to pay greater attention to potential “access pathways” to psychedelic therapies for servicemembers.
Citing a psychedelics executive order signed by Trump in April, the panel urged DOD leaders to “remain informed of lawful research and access pathways relevant to post-traumatic stress disorder and other serious mental health conditions affecting servicemembers during post-deployment and transition periods, and members of the Reserve Components and National Guard who also serve as first responders.”
That includes studies on “psilocybin-containing investigational products, including naturally derived whole-mushroom formulations administered in structured therapeutic settings,” the report that the panel approved to be attached to NDAA says.
The panel is directing the secretary of defense to issue a report by February 1, 2027 that assesses data on such trials, along with an assessment of “legal and regulatory requirements for expanded access,” including under Trump’s psychedelics executive order as well as a Right to Try law the president signed during his first term in office.
The secretary’s report would also need to include a “proposed timeline for potential pilot activities or expanded clinical research beginning in fiscal year 2027, and for any broader implementation thereafter.”
The second psychedelics amendment approved on the House floor last week, sponsored by Luttrell, Correa and Rulli, along with Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), would codify info federal law parts of the executive order Trump signed in April.
It would require the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to designate an official within 90 days of passage to oversee activities related to “emerging therapeutic interventions” such as ibogaine and other psychedelics, and to coordinate with other federal agencies to do so.
VA would also be directed to submit a report to Congress within 60 days, and then again every two years, on activities related to “emerging therapeutic interventions, including psychedelic-assisted therapies.” It would separately need to work with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to issue a report within 180 days on progress toward implementing Trump’s psychedelics executive order.
The amendment also directs the department to create a workforce implementation-readiness plan for psychedelics and other emerging therapeutic interventions.
The LCB contributed reporting from Washington, D.C.
