Politics
GOP Senator Is ‘Confident’ Psychedelics Access Will Expand Under Trump, Saying Many Veterans Speak To Him About The Benefits
A GOP senator says he’s “confident” that, under the Trump administration, lawmakers will help secure alternative treatment options for military veterans—including access to psychedelic medicine, as multiple veterans have personally requested from him after disclosing they’ve travelled abroad for the novel therapy.
And according to a U.S. Department of Veterans Affair (VA) official, a bill the president signed into law this year will streamline research into the therapeutic potential of Schedule I substances like psilocybin and MDMA.
During a Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee field hearing in Alabama on Friday, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) discussed efforts at VA to promote such research, with about a dozen ongoing clinical trials into psychedelics.
“VA Secretary Doug Collins said himself that the VA is continuing to look at new alternative treatments. As a member of this committee, I look forward to working with him and get this done,” Tuberville said, adding that under Collins, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and President Donald Trump, he’s “confident” that the country “will see generational change at the VA for our veterans struggling with their mental health.”
The senator later disclosed that that “veterans come to my office quite often,” and they’ve told him they’ve “gone to another country and a certain drug has helped,” referring to psychedelics like ibogaine.
Witnesses at the hearing, which Tuberville chaired in his home state of Alabama, included an official with VA, Veteran Mental Health Leadership Coalition’s Adam Marr, Compass Pathways’s Steve Levine, the University of Alabama’s Jim Wright and Spinal Cord Injury & Diving Innovation’s (SCI-DI) Brian Schiefer.
Ilse Wiechers, deputy executive director at the federal Veterans Health Administration (VHA)’s Office of Mental Health, said the agency is “exploring the therapeutic potential of psychedelic compounds like MDMA and psilocybin,” with a focus on serious mental health conditions such as “PTSD, major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder and substance use disorders.”
“These therapies remain investigational, and it is important to not self-medicate with psychedelics outside of a clinical research setting, as doing so can carry significant risks,” she added.
Tuberville asked the VA official to expand on that point, and Wiechers said she anticipates that any psychedelic drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would fall under the agency’s “risk evaluation mitigation system” for high risk medications.
“So this is not going to be a take-home medication,” she said. “These are going to be medications administered like ketamine and esketamine in a clinic at one of our facilities in some future state should they be approved.”
Wiechers also noted in written testimony that, “while a formal policy process will be critical to expand the scope of VA’s existing research efforts,” the agency is “pleased to support the HALT Fentanyl Act signed by President Trump in July 2025, that allows private, non-governmental entities to expand their controlled schedule I and II research protocols.”
“As with all VA research, treatments are conducted in a clinical setting with strict safety protocols and in compliance with all appropriate Federal guidelines for conducting studies with controlled substances,” she said. “Through this research, VA intends to gather rigorous scientific evidence on the potential efficacy and safety of psychedelic compounds when used in conjunction with psychotherapy.”
Tuberville, who hasn’t been especially vocal about psychedelics but has supported marijuana industry banking access in the past, said it’s “a really sad point we’ve gotten to—but I think help is on the way.”
“I think we’re working on it more. We’re putting more money. If money could solve this problem, it already been solved. But money’s not going to solve this problem,” he said. “People are going to solve this problem, and we’ve all got to work on it together.”
Levine, of Compass Pathways, said the organization “shares the committee’s goals to ensure that our nation’s veterans can access appropriate care and treatments.”
“We commend the VA for its openness to new treatment options and for the significant research it has performed related to psychedelics,” he said. “While these compounds are still being studied for potential review by the FDA, we encourage the VA to prepare for the possible entry of psychedelic therapies into the VA health system so that it is ready.”
Both VA’s Collins and HHS’s Kennedy have expressed similar sentiments in recent months, with the health secretary saying he anticipates a pathway to access within the next year.
“Should these treatments be approved, we recommend that the VA begin by developing treatment protocols, training personnel and preparing clinical care settings,” Levine said. “Compass is committed to partnering with the VA to ensure that sites have the required infrastructure and training in place for successful implementation.”
“As we have begun to do in regular meetings with the VA’s integrated project team, our shared goal must be to ensure that safe, effective medications for the treatment of depression and PTSD are accessible to veterans as soon as possible,” he said.
Marr, with the Veteran Mental Health Leadership Coalition, similarly stressed that “we must invest in research, expand access— and do so expeditiously.”
“We are requesting from Congress, simply put, sir, partnership— partnership to fund research and pilot programs at scale,” and to “support and fund community-based veteran services to prepare for FDA approval by training clinicians and building the infrastructure now.”
Tuberville also noted that there’s “a lot of misinformation” he’s heard about psychedelic therapy, and he asked Levine what might account for that.
“I think the first thing that may come to mind for many people would be the baggage of psychedelics from 1960s counterculture,” he said. “What they may be less informed about is the therapeutic potential of psychedelics, and they may not be aware that there are many late-stage trials that are moving rapidly towards FDA approval.”
“That may create new options in a range of conditions that include PTSD, depression, [and] treatment-resistant depression,” he said.
Wright, from the University of Alabama, focused much of his testimony on hyperbaric chambers as a potential treatment solution for veterans. But he said that generally “VA needs to take immediate action” to provide alternative therapies.
“We have suicides occurring every day—6,500 a year. To delay action on these potential therapies because they need more study, or we want to set up a research program, is ineffective in treating the suffering veterans,” he said. “We need immediate action—not platitudes, words or more studies.”
The Senate meeting comes amid broader increased attention to the issue in Congress, with members on both sides of the aisle, as well as key administration officials, advocating for reform.
For example, the head of VA, Collins, recently touted his role in promoting psychedelics access for veterans with serious mental health conditions, saying he “opened that door probably wider than most ever thought” was possible.
Collins, who raised the issue in a Cabinet meeting with the president, said “we’re going to do it the right way,” while advancing clinical trials investigating ibogaine, MDMA and psilocybin.
Last month, the secretary also reiterated that he’s “very open” to expanding access to psychedelics therapy for veterans—emphasizing that he’s intent on finding ways to “cure” people with serious mental health conditions and not just treat their surface-level symptoms.
Collins noted that VA either internally or through private partnerships is actively conducting about a dozen clinical trials into “various different substances that we’re seeing actually really good results on,” including one based at VA Bronx Health Care that’s investigating MDMA-assisted therapy with “actually really, really good results.”
During that interview, Collins was also shown a recent clip of Navy SEAL veteran Rob O’Neill, who killed Osama Bin Laden, talking about his theory that the federal government has intentionally avoided providing access to psychedelic medicine because cures are less profitable than long-term treatments. Collins responded by saying, “I’m going to tell you right now: This secretary of veterans affairs, myself, I want to heal people.”
Meanwhile, last month a GOP-controlled House committee approved an amendment attached to a must-pass defense bill that would require a “progress report” on an ongoing psychedelic therapy pilot program for active duty military service members and veterans.
However, while Congress has been notably amenable to psychedelics research proposals in recent sessions, the House Rules Committee last week separately blocked a bipartisan amendment to a spending bill led by Rep. Morgan Luttrell (R-TX) that would have given DOD another $10 million to support clinical trials into the therapeutic potential of substances such as ibogaine and psilocybin.
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Separately, bipartisan congressional lawmakers recently met with the VA secretary to discuss pathways to provide access to psychedelic medicine as an alternative treatment option for conditions such as PTSD.
After requesting the meeting with 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.
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 Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the head of HHS, who said recently that his aim is to free up plant-based medicine options within 12 months.
Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) separately 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.
Separately, the House recently 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.
The lawmakers 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.
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.
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.
