VA Official Says Federal Government Must ‘Gear Up’ For Expanding Psychedelic Medicine For Veterans

A U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) official says the federal
government needs to “gear up” to provide psychedelic medicines to veterans
and ensure that therapists are equipped to facilitate the novel therapy.

As VA continues to support research into psychedelic medicine, Rachel
Yehuda, director of mental health at VA’s James J. Peters Veterans Affairs
Medical Center, spoke on CBS Mornings on Friday about the therapeutic
potential of substances such as psilocybin and MDMA for veterans.

“There’s still a lot more research that needs to be done, and we have to
gear up in a way that makes it safe to be able to provide these therapies,”
she said. “We have to make sure therapists know how to use these
medications—and also who should and shouldn’t be treated with them.”

The widespread piecemeal approach to mental health treatment for conditions
such as depression, anxiety and trauma is simply a means of dampening
“symptoms,” rather than identifying possible cures, she said. Psychedelics
represent “a very different approach.”

“This is an approach where you take a medication that puts you in an altered
state of consciousness—and if you are prepared for it in the right way, and
you do it in the right setting with the right facilitator, different kind of
material will surface,” Yehuda, who was speaking in the interview in her
capacity as director of Mount Sinai’s Parsons Research Center for
Psychedelic Healing and not appearing as a representative of VA, said. “E
motions, thoughts, memories—a lot of things that usually you spend a lot of
time keeping down.”

“But the reason that we have mental health symptoms is because we feel those
things and because things have happened to us,” Yehuda said. “So this is a
way to access and be able to work with really what’s at the core of the
problem.”

“This is a way of taking a medicine—a medication once or twice or three
times at most—these are sessions that take several hours with psilocybin or MDMA
[and] could be six or eight hours, and you’re with therapists the whole time,”
she said. “Stuff comes up that you talk about, and hopefully you won’t have
to keep taking medications once you try to get at the root of the problem.”

“But let’s be very clear that there is a danger in having unfettered access
to psychedelics and having people—I wouldn’t say danger, the drugs
themselves are not very dangerous—but the material that can surface with
these drugs can be very overwhelming. So you want to really make sure that
you take the drug with a professional who is able to help you make meaning
out of the experience that you’ve just had. For many people, what comes up
can be very overwhelming, and if they don’t have somebody there to talk them
through it, then maybe some things can happen that would be harmful.”

“I think that really, when we’re talking about what’s new in the field of
mental health, we are not talking about handing somebody a psychedelic and
saying, ‘let me know how it goes,'” she said. “We’re talking about a
supervised experience.”

Yehuda has routinely discussed the therapeutic potential of psychedelic
medicine with respect t0 veterans with conditions such as post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD).


*— Marijuana Moment is tracking hundreds of cannabis, psychedelics and drug
policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon
supporters pledging at least $25/month get access to our interactive maps,
charts and hearing calendar so they don’t miss any developments.*


*Learn more about our marijuana bill tracker and become a supporter on
Patreon to get access. —*

Meanwhile, former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) over the summer extolled
the therapeutic promise of ibogaine on an episode of his podcast, drawing
attention to a Stanford University study that found the psychedelic showed
potential to treat PTSD, anxiety and depression in military veterans with
traumatic brain injury.

The message around the therapeutic potential of psychedelics has been
getting out in a number of ways, including in prominent conservative media
circles and within the Trump administration.

For example, a Navy SEAL veteran credited with killing Osama Bin Laden said
during a Fox News interview 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 Reps. Lou Correa (D-CA) and Jack
Bergman (R-MI) that would encourage VA to support research into the
benefits of psychedelics in treating medical conditions commonly affecting
military veterans.

Meanwhile, HHS Secretary Kennedy recently said his agency is “absolutely
committed” to expanding research on the benefits of psychedelic therapy and,
alongside of the head of FDA, is aiming to provide legal access to such
substances for military veterans “within 12 months.”

VA Secretary Doug Collins 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—co-chairs of the Congressional Psychedelic Advancing
Therapies (PATH) Caucus—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.

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).

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 courtesy of Dick Culbert.*

The post VA Official Says Federal Government Must ‘Gear Up’ For Expanding
Psychedelic Medicine For Veterans appeared first on Marijuana Moment.