Reps. Jack Bergman (R-MI) and Lou Correa (D-CA), co-chairs of the Congressional Psychedelics Advancing Therapies (PATH) Caucus, appeared on CNN last week pressing for faster access to psychedelic therapies for veterans and others with mental health conditions.
Correa cited high veteran suicide rates and said psilocybin, ibogaine, and MDMA therapy “works.” “You have people in my community that have actually been alcoholics [that] have been cured, drug addicts that have been cured, people with mental illnesses that are cured,” he said. “This promises to be that magic pill, that magic cure that we’ve been waiting for.” He also noted veterans traveling to Tijuana, Mexico for ibogaine treatment who return largely free of symptoms.
Bergman, a Vietnam combat veteran, said Congress should fund VA and other agency research on these therapies and ensure trained therapists are ready alongside legal access to the compounds.
The two are sponsoring an amendment to a VA funding bill this week that adjusts the Medical and Prosthetic Research account to highlight work on oncology, traumatic brain injury care, psychedelic therapies, and assistive devices. They recently led 32 bipartisan House members in urging FDA to expedite psychedelic therapy reviews.
FDA and HHS last month announced steps to accelerate psychedelic therapeutic access following a Trump executive order. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a February Joe Rogan Experience interview, “Everybody in my agency…is very anxious to get a rule out there that will allow these kind of studies and will allow access under therapeutic settings, particularly [for] the military soldiers who have suffered these injuries to get access to these products.” Last June, Kennedy said his agency is “absolutely committed” to expanding psychedelic therapy research, with a goal of providing veterans legal access within 12 months.
Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins said in April he had an “eye-opening” conversation with Kennedy about psychedelic medicine and is open to government vouchers for veterans seeking therapy outside the VA. Bipartisan legislation introduced this session would provide $30 million annually for psychedelic-focused “centers for excellence” at VA facilities offering psilocybin, MDMA, and ibogaine. A Senate committee held a hearing last month on a bipartisan bill to create a new VA office to advance innovative treatments and review the scheduling of psilocybin, ibogaine, and MDMA. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) has called ibogaine an “astonishing breakthrough.”
