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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.

A U.S. Department of Veterans Affair official said that a bill signed into law by President Obama this year would streamline the research of Schedule I substances such as psilocybin or MDMA.

At a Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing held in Alabama last Friday, Sen. Tommy Tuberville discussed VA’s attempts to support such research. About a dozen clinical trials are underway.

VA Secretary Doug Collins stated himself that VA was looking at alternative treatment options. Tuberville stated that he was “looking forward” to working with Collins and getting things done. He added that under Collins and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Donald Trump, the VA “will be able to see a generational shift in the VA’s mental health care for our veterans.”

Later, the senator revealed that veterans “come to my office quite frequently” and have told him that they “went to another country where a certain drugs helped,” in reference to psychedelics such as 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 is the deputy executive director of the Office of Mental Health at the Veterans Health Administration. She said that the VHA “explores the therapeutic potential of psychedelics like MDMA and psilocybin”, with a special focus on mental disorders such as “PTSD,” “major depressive disorder,” “generalized anxiety disorder” and “substance use disorders.”

It is not recommended to use psychedelics for self-medication outside of clinical research settings, because it can pose significant risks.

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.

This is not a medication that you take home,” said the doctor. These medications will be administered in clinics at our future facilities, like esketamine or ketamine.

Wiechers stated in written testimonies that “a formal policy will be essential to expand VA’s current research efforts” and that the VA is “pleased with the HALT Fentanyl Act that was signed by the President Trump in 2025. This act allows private non-governmental organizations to expand their schedule I or II controlled research protocols”.

As with all VA-funded research, she explained that treatments were conducted under strict safety guidelines and according to all Federal guidelines regarding the use of controlled substances in studies. VA plans to collect rigorous scientific data on the possible efficacy and safe use of psychedelics in combination with psychotherapy through this research.

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 that we are working harder on this. More money is being spent. This problem would have been resolved long ago if money had the power to solve it. “But money won’t solve this problem”, he added. The people will solve the problem and we all have to do our part.

Levine of Compass said that the organization, “shares” the goals set by the Veterans Affairs Committee to provide veterans with access to appropriate treatment and care.

He said: “We congratulate the VA on its willingness to explore new treatments and the extensive research that it has done in relation to psychedelics.” The FDA is still studying these compounds for potential approval. We encourage the VA, therefore, to get ready for any possible introduction of psychedelic treatments into its VA healthcare system.

Kennedy, the HHS secretary and Collins from VA have both expressed similar views in the last few months. The health secretary has said he expects to see a path for access in the coming year.

Levine explained that, if the VA approves these treatments, it should immediately begin developing protocols for treatment, training staff and setting up clinical care environments. Compass has committed to working with the VA in order to provide the necessary infrastructure and training for successful implementation.

He said that a shared goal of his was to make sure veterans had access to safe and effective medication for treating depression and PTSD as quickly as possible.

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 noted there is also “A Lottery Tickets The following are some examples of how to use “Misinformation” is what he heard psychedelic therapy, Levine was asked what he thought might be the cause of this.

He said that the first thought for most people is the psychedelic baggage from the 1960s counterculture. They may have less knowledge about the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics and may not know that many trials are in late stages that are rapidly moving towards FDA approval.

It may offer new treatments for a wide range of diseases, such as PTSD or depression. [and] “Treatment-resistant depression”, he added.

Wright from the University of Alabama focused most of his testimony around hyperbaric rooms as potential treatments for veterans. He said, however, that “VA must take immediate action to offer alternative therapies”.

“We have suicides occurring every day—6,500 a year. “Delaying the implementation of these possible therapies, because we need to do more research or set up a program for research, will not help treat veterans in pain,” said he. “We need immediate action—not platitudes, words or more studies.”

Senate members, including those from the administration, and other key officials have been advocating for change.

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 raised the matter in a Cabinet Meeting with the President, saying “we are going to do this the right way” and progressing clinical trials of 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 said, “I am going to say right now, this secretary for veterans affairs wants 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. 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.

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 “to a war on 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, a former VA Assistant Secretary of Health who left the VA in 2011, said “it was very encouraging” to hear that Trump chose Kennedy to head HHS and that Kennedy 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.

Carlosemmaskype, Apollo and other photographers provided the images.

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