The Navy SEAL who is credited for killing Osama bin Laden has said that psychedelic therapies have helped him deal with the traumas he suffered during his military service. He stressed “it works”, and it should be a treatment option.
Rob O’Neill from SEAL Team 6 discussed with Tucker Carlson (former Fox News presenter who hosts his podcast), post-traumatic anxiety disorder, and his supervised consumption of psychedelic ibogaine, in Mexico, which helped him to stabilize his psychological state after undergoing various traumas both during and after service.
“I do ibogaine now. I do psychedelics,” he said, adding that he takes the treatment outside of the U.S.—where the substance remains a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA)—once a year to prevent symptoms of PTSD.
O’Neill founded Operator Canna in New York, a cannabis company that specializes in cannabis. “It works.”
“I have seen men drink themselves out of trouble.” [PTSD]”It’s horrible,” said he. Alcohol doesn’t work, but psychedelics will. Because they are effective, it’s illegal here. Why won’t they help veterans?”
O’Neill pointed out that organizations like Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions, (VETS), are helping veterans access psychedelic treatments. However, he stated that the government could do more to ensure that the veteran community has greater access to this treatment.
He said that another company Ambio, “gets veterans and first-responders to Mexico.” The VA should offer this treatment in New York. It should be available in Virginia, California and Virginia. “Veterans should be allowed to have ibogaine administered in a medical setting, just like they do so in Mexico.”
It gets into your head. It’s a lot of stuff. “It’s like a closet cleaning,” O’Neill added.
DMT was described as “awesome” by the man, but ibogaine produced intense trips which forced people to confront their traumas.
It’s a familiar story. Veteran activists have led efforts to promote psychedelic research in recent years and allow therapeutic access to drugs like MDMA and psilocybin.
O’Neill’s talk with Carlson happened just days after U.S. House of Representatives added an amendment from Reps. Lou Correa, (D-CA), and Jack Bergman, (R-MI), that encourages VA to provide support for research into the potential benefits of psychedelics as a treatment option for medical conditions that commonly affect military veterans.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of HHS, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, stated last week his commitment to expand research on psychedelic therapies. He also said that the FDA, along with him, will provide veterans legal access within a year.
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Doug Collins also disclosed in April that he had an “eye-opening” talk with Kennedy about the therapeutic potential of psychedelic medicine. He said that he is open to having vouchers provided by the government to pay for psychedelic therapies for veterans receiving services from outside the VA, as Congress looks at pathways to access.
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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.
Meanwhile last month, bipartisan congressional lawmakers asked the VA head to meet with them to discuss ways to provide access to psychedelic medicine for military veterans.
In a letter sent to Collins, Reps. Lou Correa (D-CA) and Jack Bergman (R-MI)—co-chairs of the Congressional Psychedelic Advancing Therapies (PATH) Caucus—said they were “encouraged by your recent remarks about the importance of pursuing research into psychedelic treatments and other alternative treatments to improve Veterans’ care.”
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.
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.
Kennedy criticized the FDA’s prior administration for “suppressing psychedelics”, and other matters that, he claimed, amounted a “war against public health”. He said that this would be ended under Trump.
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.
Shereef Enahal, former VA Assistant Secretary of Health in January 2017, said it was “very encouraging”, that Trumps choice to make Kennedy the HHS head had supported psychedelics. And he hoped to work with him on the issue if he stayed on for the next administration, but that didn’t pan out.
Images courtesy carlosemmaskype & Apollo.
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