Congressmen from both parties are calling on the head of President Donald Trump’s Department of Veterans Affairs to arrange a meeting with them in order to explore ways of providing access to psychedelic medicines for veterans.
In a letter sent to VA Secretary Doug Collins on Wednesday, 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.”
Collins, a former GOP congressman, has been vocal about his interest in exploring psychedelics therapy—including in a recent Cabinet meeting with Trump.
In a Senate hearing, held Tuesday, he reiterated that he was committed to examining the efficacy psychedelic treatment to combat serious mental illnesses which are common among veterans.
The congressmen in the letter wrote that $1.5M in funding was provided for a “MDMA-assisted treatment to treat PTSD, alcoholism and comorbidity in Veterans in December last year. This step has been critical in advancing our research.”
Correa and Bergman stated that “given the encouraging results of clinical research on these substances, and their therapeutic use, we hope to work together in order to provide these therapies for Veterans safely and effectively.”
Each day about 18 Veterans kill themselves. We owe it to these warriors to explore all possible medical treatments to cure the invisible wounds caused by their dedicated service—because even one death is too many,” they said. We invite you to come and meet us as soon as possible to discuss further areas of collaboration in relation to these promising treatments.
Correa, Bergman, each separately, introduced last month a bill to fund $30 million per year to create “psychedelic centers of excellence” in VA hospitals, where veterans can receive new treatment with substances like MDMA, ibogaine, and psilocybin.
Bergman is also optimistic about the chances of seeing psychedelics legislation under Trump. She argues that Trump’s administration will be able to take on such complex problems with its efforts to trim federal spending and reduce the workforce.
Collins, for his part, has previously said he had an “eye-opening” talk with U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about psychedelics issues and intended to press Congress to act.
In recent days, the VA Secretary said that the VA is also open to the idea to have the government issue vouchers for veterans to receive psychedelic treatment outside VA. This comes as Congress looks at ways to increase access.
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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, Rachel Yehuda, who has overseen some psychedelic research as director of mental health at VA’s James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center, 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, the former VA under secretary for health who was appointed by Trump to lead HHS in January said it was “very encouraging”, that Trump had chosen Kennedy as his HHS leader and that Kennedy supported reform of 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.
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Carlosemmaskype, Apollo and other photographers provided the images.
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