Multiple witnesses are expected to speak about the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics at a U.S. Senate Committee hearing scheduled on “alternative therapy” for veterans.
A field hearing is scheduled to take place in Montevallo on Friday, where members of Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee are expected to gather to discuss the suicide epidemic among veterans as well as possible mental health treatments, including psychedelic medication.
Witnesses include an official with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (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.
It’s a call for action. Marr, who spoke to MEDCAN24 Thursday said that the veterans weren’t at fault; it was the system. Marr said that VA does many good things, but they are not as successful in bringing new technologies and approaches into the system.
In written testimony to be presented to the committee, Marr said that the phrase “alternative therapies” often “carries stigma,” and so he prefers to say “emerging or breakthrough therapies, as nearly every major psychedelic—MDMA, psilocybin, DMT, LSD, ibogaine, 5-MeO-DMT, methylone—are in FDA-regulated trials.”
The psychedelic therapy has the potential to rapidly and significantly improve mental disorders (e.g. PTSD, depression, anxiety, substance use disorders)—when used under careful conditions with preparation, clinical oversight, and integration—and they can facilitate meaningful durable changes in behavior and functioning. These treatments are especially promising for those patients who did not benefit from previous therapies.”
Marr stated in his testimony that despite “promising outcomes, psychedelic treatments face burdensome regulatory obstacles to research and patient access”. Marr also stated that it was “difficult” to “understand” why the federal government has only allocated “minimal funding” to study the therapeutic benefits of these substances.
The majority of the witnesses who were selected to testify at this hearing had been engaged in psychedelic research or advocacy.
Ilse Weichers, vice-executive director of federal Veterans Health Administration’s Office of Mental Health (VHA), was one of several authors of 2024’s report, which examined research and implementation concerns for psychedelic therapy in VA.
Levine works as the Chief Patients Officer at Compass, a biotechnology-based research company that is specialized in psychedelics. The FDA has designated psilocybin a breakthrough therapy.
Schiefer is a veteran of the military himself and has promoted the benefits of psychedelic medicines as part of SCI-DI’s mission to increase access to alternative treatments for veterans suffering from serious mental or physical conditions.
The hearing will take place in Alabama, where Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-AL, lives. He has expressed support for the cannabis banking industry but is not particularly active on the reform of psychedelics.
Senate Meeting: The Senate’s meeting coincides with a broader increase in attention on the topic by Congress. Members from both parties of the aisle as well as senior administration officials are advocating reform.
The head of VA, for example, recently praised his role in helping veterans suffering from serious mental illnesses to access psychedelics, saying that he had “opened this door wider than many thought possible”.
VA Secretary Doug Collins raised the topic in a cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump and said, “We’re going do it right,” as he advanced clinical trials into 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 replied, “I will tell you now that this secretary of veterans affairs and I, we want to heal the 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 is a VA secretary that’s particularly passionate about exploring how substances like MDMA and ibogaine can provide relief for serious mental illnesses. She coordinates her efforts with others, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of HHS who stated recently his intention to open up options of plant-based medication within 12 month.
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.
In April, lawmakers also introduced a separate bill that would provide an annual funding of $30 million to create “psychedelics centers for excellence” in VA facilities where veterans might receive treatment with substances like MDMA, ibogaine, or psilocybin.
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, former VA Assistant Secretary of Health and Undersecretary for Health at the VA in January 2017, said it was a “very encouraging sign” that Trumps choice to make Kennedy head HHS had supported psychedelics legislation. 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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