Next week, the House of Representatives will hold what is believed to be the very first congressional hearing on psychedelic assisted therapy for veterans’ mental healthcare.
The House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Health had originally been scheduled to meet on October 19, but the hearing was delayed as Republicans scrambled for a House Speaker.
The panel will convene at 2 p.m. on Tuesday for an event entitled “Emerging Therapy: Breakthroughs In the Battle Against Suicide?”
Two new witnesses were added to the agenda after the meeting was postponed last month. The first is Brett Waters. He’s the co-founder of Reason for Hope and its executive director. They work to increase access to psychedelic drugs to reduce the deaths from despair.
Waters is a former chair of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s policy and advocacy committee. He lost his mother, as well as his grandfather, a World War II fighter pilot, to suicide.
Juliana Mercer is the other new witness. She’s a Marine Corps vet who leads advocacy and policy at Healing Breakthrough. The nonprofit helps veterans get MDMA-assisted treatment for PTSD.
Other speakers include three Department of Veterans Affairs officials, a vet who successfully treated his PTSD with MDMA, the chief operating office of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies Public Benefit Corporation, a professor of psychology at the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, and the codirector of RAND Corporation’s RAND Epstein Family Veterans Policy Research Institute.
All witnesses, with the exception Mercer, have already had their testimonies published online ahead of the subcommittee meeting.
Waters, a new witness added to Mercer’s list on Wednesday, has submitted 32 pages worth of testimony.
In his remarks to lawmakers, he said that five years after the death of his mother, “I can’t help but believe she would have benefited immensely from psilocybin assisted therapy.” It is one of many questions that I have and will never be able to answer.
Waters’ written testimonies urges Congress to back the Breakthrough Therapies Act. This bipartisan legislation would streamline rescheduling federally designated breakthrough therapies such as MDMA and psilocybin to promote drug research and development.
Waters replaces another witness in the case, Martin Steele who is the president of Veteran Mental Health Leading Coalition and a Marine Corps Veteran.
The witnesses are divided into panels for the event next week. First, a select group of VA officials will be present. The second group is composed of stakeholders from outside.
Carolyn Clancy, VA’s assistant undersecretary of health for discovery, Education and Affiliate Networks, stated in her written comments, that the agency’s top priority is veteran safety.
She wrote: “Based on the literature we have reviewed, there is much more to learn and understand about the potential benefits psychedelic compounds.” Our Department is focused not only on finding innovative treatments and cures but also doing so safely.
Clancy pointed out that VA held a conference called State of the Art in early September last month to address two main objectives. She wrote that the first objective was “to better understand the state of scientific research and identify a framework for future psychedelic treatments research” in order to address certain mental health conditions. The second objective was to identify the next steps necessary for possible VA system-wide implementation of psychedelic compound for future use.
She acknowledged that while studies show psychedelics may help treat mental disorders, there are “key research gaps” in how to treat the “unique population” of Veterans who receive care under the Veterans Health Administration.
Frederick Barrett, a Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research professor, is one of those who will be testifying from outside the federal government. In written comments he stated that studies from both his institution and other institutions “are building an increasing record of information showing both the relative efficacy and safety of psychedelic treatments in a variety of psychiatric conditions.”
He noted that “these studies were funded almost entirely by private philanthropy.” Only recently have the National Institute on Drug Abuse and National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health provided a significant grant for the study of clinical use of psychoedelics.
Barrett said psychedelics-assisted therapies still require further refinement, as they become more widely accessible. He cited recent phase 3 clinical trials on MDMA’s ability to treat PTSD.
Michael Mullette, a witness from the MAPS Public Benefit Corporation who led the clinical trial that has now positioned MDMA to be FDA approved as early as next year said VA “has an opportunity to create innovative treatment models to ensure treatments are scalable, affordable and, most importantly, covered timely for veterans in need.”
Some of the members, especially Republicans, have expressed an interest in reforming psychedelics before. Rep. Jack Bergman, R-MI, for example, was the founding member of the Congressional Psychedelics Advancing Therapies. This bipartisan group relaunched in March.
Rep. Morgan Luttrell, R-TX, has shared publicly how treatment with 5-MeO DMT and ibogaine “changed my Life”. It was “one the greatest things that happened to me.”
Rep. Mariannette Miller Meeks (R – IA), the chair of the House Subcommittee, led a summer roundtable to discuss new therapies for PTSD.
Republicans, particularly at the federal government level, have shown a marked openness to veterans’ stories about the life-changing impact of psychedelics. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), in a documentary on psychedelics and mental health, said that GOP legislators are more open to reform psychedelics than Democrats–at the very least those in Congress.
Blue states are leading the way in psychedelics legislation. In 2020, Oregon will legalize psilocybin treatment and decriminalize possession of all drugs. The state has approved the first legal psilocybin treatment center in May.
And in Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis (D) signed a psychedelics regulation bill into law in May, setting rules for a psychedelics legalization law that voters passed last year.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democratic representative from California, recently vetoed the psychedelics bill. In his veto message he stated that he wanted the legislature to send him next year, a new law establishing guidelines for therapeutic access to psychedelics. He also said they should consider a “potential” framework for future decriminalization.
California officials approved a campaign to start collecting signatures for a ballot initiative in 2024 to legalize possession, sale, and regulated therapeutic uses of psilocybin. This is one of two campaigns that will be attempting to pass psychedelics legislation through the ballot next year. was filed as a formal document last month and would allow all psychedelics to be used for medical, therapeutic, and spiritual purposes, and also allow home cultivation of entheogenic substances and plants.
Last week, organizers of a campaign in Massachusetts said they believed they had collected enough valid signatures for lawmakers to take into consideration a psychedelics reform initiative. This is the first option before activists decide to place it on the 2024 ballot.
The first episode of the new VA podcast on veteran health care focused on the healing power of psychedelics.
Some people feel that the agency is not doing enough to prioritise therapies involving controlled substances even though some states have legalized medical cannabis and others are moving to legalize possession some psychedelics.
House lawmakers approved a spending measure earlier this year that included amendments aimed at veterans who use marijuana or psychedelics. The first would allow VA doctors the ability to recommend medical cannabis to veterans, while the second would encourage the research of the therapeutic potentials of psychedelics.
Three bipartisan cochairs of Congressional Cannabis Caucus sent a letter to VA Secretary Denis McDonough in August expressing their “deep concern” about a recent VA directive which continues to prevent its doctors from giving medical cannabis recommendations for veterans who live in states where the drug is legal.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-OR, one of the letter’s authors, sent a separate email to McDonough and Department of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin slamming both departments for “misguided service denial” in recommending against medical marijuana use by veterans with PTSD.
VA and DOD have a history of claiming to be acting in the best interests of veterans and service members, only to deny that medical marijuana is a viable treatment for those suffering from PTSD. He referred to the joint clinical practice guidelines released by the departments last July.
A recent Harvard University panel, which featured former VA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials agreed that psychedelics like MDMA and psilocybin have the potential to treat PTSD and reduce suicide rates among servicemen. However, they warned against unsupervised, hasty use of psychedelics due to possible harms.
The National Institutes of Health announced earlier this month that it is looking for proposals to develop psychedelics as treatments for substance abuse disorder (SUD).
Former FDA Official Says He’d Be ‘Shocked’ If DEA Doesn’t Reschedule Marijuana By 2024 Election
Image courtesy of Workman.
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