Politics
Bipartisan Lawmakers Talk Psychedelics With Trump’s VA Head, Reaffirming Commitment To Supporting Veterans’ Access To Therapy
Bipartisan congressional lawmakers met with the head of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on Monday to discuss pathways to provide access to psychedelic medicine as an alternative treatment option for conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
After requesting the meeting with VA Secretary Doug Collins in May, Reps. Lou Correa (D-CA) and Jack Bergman (R-MI)—founding co-chairs of the Congressional Psychedelic Advancing Therapies (PATH) Caucus—said the three had a productive conversations about advancing psychedelics therapy for the veteran community.
“Our veterans put their lives on the line to defend our county and far too many come home with invisible wounds. Today’s rate of up to 20 veteran suicides a day is unacceptable, one veteran suicide is unacceptable,” Correa said in a press release.
“Veterans deserve treatment that works, and the science shows that psychedelics have game-changing results,” he said. “It was an honor to meet with Secretary Collins today to reaffirm our joint commitment to ensuring our nation’s heroes have access to the care they need and deserve.”
To that point, Collins has stood out as a VA secretary who’s especially passionate about exploring the potential of substances such as ibogaine and MDMA to provide relief from serious mental health conditions, coordinating with other officials including U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who said recently that his aim is to free up plant-based medicine options within 12 months.
“VA is challenging the status quo to find new ways of helping Veterans. To that end, VA is conducting 11 clinical studies of potential psychedelic-assisted therapies,” Collins said following the meeting with the lawmakers. “I appreciate the leadership of Reps. Correa and Bergman on this issue, and I look forward to working with Congress as VA explores new avenues to safely and responsibly help those who have served.”
Bergman said veterans “didn’t hesitate to fight for us—and now it’s up to us to fight for them.”
“Psychedelic-assisted therapies are bringing real hope to those battling PTSD and other challenges, and thanks to Secretary Collins’ leadership, the VA is shifting from talk to action,” he said. “Together, we’re advancing innovative solutions to ensure every Veteran gets the care they’ve earned.”
While Congress has been notably amenable to psychedelics research proposals in recent sessions, a powerful House committee on Monday blocked a bipartisan amendment to a spending bill that would have given the Department of Defense (DOD) another $10 million to support clinical trials into the therapeutic potential of substances such as ibogaine and psilocybin.
Under appropriations legislation that was enacted last session, DOD is already mandated to conduct the trials, with $10 million in previously provided funding, to investigate the medical value of psychedelics for active duty military members.
The action blocking the amendment to the spending bill from advancing comes as bipartisan lawmakers and stakeholders continue to see other advances in the debate over psychedelic medicine.
For example, former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) recently said the psychedelic ibogaine represents an “astonishing breakthrough” in the nation’s current “sick care system” that’s left people with serious mental health conditions without access to promising alternative treatment options—and he intends to use his influence to advance the issue.
Meanwhile, a Navy SEAL veteran credited with killing Osama Bin Laden said during a Fox News interview last week that psychedelic therapy has helped him process the trauma he experienced during his time in the military, stressing that “it works” and should be an available treatment option.
That interview came days after the U.S. House of Representatives included an amendment to a spending bill from Correa and Bergman that would encourage VA to support research into the benefits of psychedelics in treating medical conditions commonly affecting military veterans.
Collins, for his part, also disclosed in April that he had an “eye-opening” talk with Kennedy about the therapeutic potential of psychedelic medicine. And he said he’s open to the idea of having the government provide vouchers to cover the costs of psychedelic therapy for veterans who receive services outside of VA as Congress considers pathways for access.
Collins also recently visited a facility conducting research on psychedelics, and he reiterated that it’s his “promise” to advance research into the therapeutic potential of the substances—even if that might take certain policy changes within the department and with congressional support.
The secretary’s visit to the psychedelics research center came about a month after the VA secretary met with a military veteran who’s become an advocate for psilocybin access to discuss the therapeutic potential of psychedelic medicine for the veteran community.
Collins also briefly raised the issue in a Cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump in April.
Correa and Bergman separately introduced a bill in April to provide $30 million in funding annually to establish psychedelics-focused “centers for excellence” at VA facilities, where veterans could receive novel treatment involving substances like psilocybin, MDMA and ibogaine.
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Bergman has also expressed optimism about the prospects of advancing psychedelics reform under Trump, arguing that the administration’s efforts to cut spending and the federal workforce will give agencies “spines” to tackle such complex issues.
Kennedy, for his part, also said in April that he had a “wonderful experience” with LSD at 15 years old, which he took because he thought he’d be able to see dinosaurs, as portrayed in a comic book he was a fan of.
Last October, Kennedy specifically criticized FDA under the prior administration over the agency’s “suppression of psychedelics” and a laundry list of other issues that he said amounted to a “war on public health” that would end under the Trump administration.
In December, VA separately announced that it’s providing $1.5 million in funding to study the efficacy of MDMA-assisted therapy for veterans with PTSD and alcohol use disorder (AUD).
Last year, VA’s Yehuda also touted an initial study the agency funded that produced “stunning and robust results” from its first-ever clinical trial into MDMA therapy.
In January, former VA Under Secretary for Health Shereef Elnahal said that it was “very encouraging” that Trump’s pick to have Kennedy lead HHS has supported psychedelics reform. And he hoped to work with him on the issue if he stayed on for the next administration, but that didn’t pan out.
Photo elements courtesy of carlosemmaskype and Apollo.
