This is One Thing, I'm David Rind, and LSD, magic mushrooms, ecstasy, ibogaine. The Trump administration wants in on all of them. Not for partying though, for healing.

This can always go sideways, but I don't know if it's going to.

It's nothing like any of the other medicines, not like peyote, it's not like psilocybin, not like DMT. This lasted 14, 15 hours for me. 14 hours. I think I got up once to use the bathroom.

'Last summer, I spoke to Samantha Juan. She's a Special Forces veteran. She told me life was not easy after returning from Afghanistan in 2013. She had severe PTSD, couldn't hold the job. She was self-medicating with alcohol and opioids. Traditional therapy wasn't really working. She tried psychedelics like peyote, but that didn't do the trick either. Eventually, Sam was introduced to ibogaine. It comes from a plant found in Central Africa. And ibogain is classified as a schedule one drug. It's extremely restricted in the U.S. It creates powerful hallucinations. Much of the time, patients are required to be hooked up to a heart monitor while using it because it also comes with significant cardiac risks. Because it's not approved in the U.S., the only way to use it is to travel abroad and spend thousands of dollars for a guided session. But lately, a growing number of military veterans, former NFL players, and people who have struggled with addiction have come forward to say that Ibogaine was the radical help they needed to treat a variety of issues, like substance abuse, traumatic brain injuries, severe anxiety, PTSD, and treatment-resistant depression. Sam was hearing a lot of those stories. So in 2023, she went to Mexico and gave it a try.

I was willing to go through whatever intense experience to not feel what I was feeling. I have not touched an opiate since, I haven't thought about it, I have even tried to be around it. Or like.

And so you've only done it the one time?

The one time.

And that was it, kicked the habit entirely?

Yes.

When Sam and I spoke last year, there was hope that Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Would listen to prominent voices like Joe Rogan and former Texas Governor Rick Perry, who have been pushing states and the federal government to pump more money into research and speed up the approval process. On Saturday, that hope turned into action.

And I am pleased to announce historic reforms to dramatically accelerate access to new medical research and treatments based on psychedelic drugs and many.

In the Oval Office flanked by Kennedy, Rogan, FDA Chief Dr. Marty Makary, and others, President Trump signed an executive order aimed at encouraging expanded research into psychedelic drugs including Ibogaine.

What was your first reaction when you heard about this executive order?

Oh my god, extreme excitement. So many text messages going on, like everyone was like, did you see it? Did you see? You know?

'It's called I-bogaine treatment. I-Bogaine. Remember the name. Is that pronounced relatively properly what you said? Yep.

I mean, is it surreal to hear President Trump say the word Ibogaine in the Oval Office, even if he has some trouble pronouncing it at first?

Not as bad as acetaminophen. That's a hard word. That's right.

It's so important and experienced an 80 to 90 percent reduction in symptoms of depression and anxiety within one month. Can I have some please? I'll take whatever it takes. I don't have time to be depressed.

We're going to dig into this executive order in a bit, but Sam stressed to me that this is not a joke and is definitely not for recreation. Sam is hoping this executive orders just the first step in making this treatment, what she and others call medicine, more accessible for struggling Americans.

Outside of the medicine being approved, I think the whole ecosystem of, you know, having the right therapists in place to screen, to counsel, to coach, then during the retreat or during the sessions, it takes, you knows, nurses, therapists, like medical staff on site to really fully like observe the veteran or, you known, the person getting the treatment. And then afterwards, you know, it takes weeks of. Coaching integration to really see that the medicine is working to its full effect because receiving the treatment and going through that 14, 16 hour journey is just one small fraction of the healing process. It really is the integration. When you go home, when you're back where your triggers might still be, you know, around the people that might not support you in this new journey that you're going through.

So it sounds like even if the drug gets approved, there's still going to need to be training done for people who can support these sessions to make sure everybody is safe and to go through the process. So it's not just the drug itself, it's the whole infrastructure around it.

So once I left Mexico after the retreat, I made sure to, I left Dallas, I moved from Dallas to Baltimore. I made new friends, new, you know, networks and it's been incredible. So I fully, fully would do it again. It's totally worth it.

So what does this executive order actually do? What doesn't it do? And could Trump's political brand taint the whole enterprise? Let's talk to Melissa Lavasani. She's the founder and CEO of the Psychedelic Medicine Coalition. They're an advocacy group based in Washington. And Melissa has personal connection to psychedelics too. She says after the birth of her second child, she was diagnosed with postpartum depression. The medication she was offered weren't working or had terrible side effects. Things got so bad, she contemplated suicide. But then Melissa heard a podcast about psilocybin mushrooms in the clinical trials that were happening around them to study their healing potential. She didn't qualify for those trials, so Melissa found another way.

My husband, who listened to that podcast with me, made some kind of flippant comment, like, I grew mushrooms in college. Why don't we try this? And we grew mushrooms in our closet.

Oh, you grew them yourself!

I kind of had to ake matters into my own hands.

I mean, is that something you recommend people do to grow mushrooms in their closet?

No, no, I actually don't recommend it and I think like my journey to getting better would have gone so much smoother if I was engaged with my health care. Like I didn't tell any of my doctors that I was doing this. This was something that I quote unquote was going rogue with. They were trying to get me on antidepressants and in my mind I was like that was just not for me. But now, since I've spent more and more time in the space, and I've learned more about these medicines, I think the safest way to do them is under medical supervision within the healthcare system. So a lot of folks are really desperate to try some of these treatments, and it's just taking a while for the federal government to get on board with it. I think that introducing psychedelics very carefully and thoughtfully through our healthcare system is probably the safest to roll this out.

The executive order I'm signing, we're actually signing the executive order today, is really a moment. It directs the FDA to expedite their review of certain psychedelics already designated as breakthrough therapy drugs. They're very much...

Well, so talk to me about this executive order that President Trump signed the other day. What exactly does it do?

Yeah, I mean, I see this executive order as being a really meaningful federal signal on psychedelics. It's a signal that agencies can move faster on things using established acceleration methods, right? It doesn't change the rules about how these drugs get approved and what they're getting evaluated on. And that's really why I think this is a positive for the movement. We cannot lower the scientific bar, that certainly this executive order is not doing that. But what it is doing is accelerating federal, it's directing the federal agencies to accelerate the research and review times. It takes almost 10 years and up to like $700 million at least to get a drug approved. It's a very long and arduous process. And there are certain things like the breakthrough therapy status and the priority review vouchers that are available to any drug going through the FDA process. And this was President Trump telling the FDA, telling HHS, it's like, hey, utilize these routes. Like, let's prioritize these treatments and get them across the finish line if the data is there. So to me, this is a really promising thing. It doesn't legalize psychedelics. It's not lowering FDA standards and it's not creating an immediate access. So if the scientific bar and the regulatory bar are staying at the exact same level and we have the White House's blessing on this, I think this is positive.

So you don't have concerns that by the White House saying, like, we should get this going faster, that that could lead to, you know, cut corners or safety concerns.

I mean, obviously that's like always an underlying concern. You know, I never wanted psychedelics to go through the process with political favor.

I'll tell everybody how this happened. I sent President Trump some information. We have a gigantic opiate problem in this country, obviously.

I didn't love that President Trump said, you want an FDA approval, I'll give you an FDA approval, but I think he's just kind of his style of talking.

With one dose of Ibogaine, more than 80% of people are free of that addiction. With two doses, it's more than 90%. I sent him that information. The text message came back, sounds great. Do you want FDA approval? Let's do it. It was literally that quick.

You know, he says statements like this, but I know so many folks that are at FDA right now evaluating these drugs really act in integrity and take their career really seriously and wanna be on the right side of this.

'Worth noting, of course, that presidents cannot give FDA approval, and the FDA continues to stress it will follow the science and data when it comes to psychedelics. Gotta take a break, and when we come back, what the so-called manosphere has to do with all this. Stick around.

Stocks in a few psychedelics companies surged after this announcement. Obviously, they stand to make a lot of money if this stuff does end up getting approved. Does a potential big pharmaification of the psychedelics industry give you pause at all?

'Um, I think our knee-jerk reaction is always, um, you know, demonize big pharma and certainly there are issues with our healthcare system structurally that need to be addressed and I don't think they're going to be address with the issue of psychedelics, but in my mind from like, uh, a board of governance, like this is a investor opportunity. They, they, they see this as, you now, another revenue stream that could be potentially really fruitful for them but I don't think they're gonna derail anything. We do, there are some concerns about, you know, some of these treatments and some of these compounds have been used, the natural versions of psilocybin, natural DMT, natural ibogaine, more commonly known as iboga, comes from Africa. There are concerns that as interest grows in this, that the cultural component of some of these traditions is going to get lost in the mix. Um, but there is enough, uh, dialog between advocates and those who practice in these respective fields that, you know, our goal, our goal is to ensure that like the system is not too, too extractive.

I mean, you mentioned the cultural aspect. Obviously, some of these drugs are used by indigenous communities, very rooted in those traditions.

We all respect Joe, and he's a little bit more liberal than me, but that's okay.

Joe Rogan was a prominent voice in this. He was standing behind Trump at this announcement, you know, despite criticizing him on the war with Iran.

This guy's got guts, come here, these guys, two good guys.

'And in addition to Rogan, just a lot of white guys in general, in that photo op, I mean, is this becoming like a Manosphere-coded kind of space?

'Um, I think there's an element of that, certainly, like, the tech community has a lot of overlap with the psychedelic community, of course, like a lot of the the philanthropic funders come from the tech world. And, you know, I think this society has a manosphere issue, right? Where, you know, male voices are, you know, prioritized over other voices. For me, I'm grateful that the male voices in that room brought this issue to the White House. And hopefully we can continue to be in dialog about what this looks like to ensure that this care is delivered to the right patients. And there's equal, equitable access to this, that this is covered by insurance, that this isn't just some one-off treatment that is for... Hardcore special operations veterans, that this can be something that can be effective for mothers and women and all folks from all kinds of spectrums of the world. So there's a lot of amazing diversity in this space and I just have to have faith that we need to keep elevating all voices and hopefully we'll get to a system of care that is equitable and affordable for folks.

I mean, politically too, just as someone who's seen this conversation evolve, how does it feel to see Republicans striving a lot of this conversation? This was the party of just say no to drugs, right?

Right, right. I think it feels awesome. You know, like, that was like the big question in the room before I even started. My organization, Psychedelic Madison Coalition, was like, how are we going to handle this, like conservative core of the Republican Party that potentially could see some of these treatments and psychedelic experiences as something closer to witchcraft, you know, like they're. These are kind of unique experiences that don't necessarily have a place in mainstream American culture. And it's just an interesting dialog that has developed over time. When we started our advocacy in 2021, we always knew that we had to put a little bit extra attention on the Republican Party. And then the veteran community kind of showed up and was a really amazing force. Within Congress, especially, to bring on board certain members of the Republican Party onto this issue and introduce this in a way that felt very comfortable for them. It's really hard to hear multiple veteran stories that say the same thing. And I've heard it some time and time again, a veteran goes to the VA, they are feeling depressed, they have PTSD, they had mild traumatic brain injury. They leave the VA with a cocktail of pills that they have to take day in and day out. Sometimes it works, sometimes it relieves only a few symptoms and there's a lot of side effects. So they found a real place in the psychedelic medicine movement because so many veterans have been given a second chance at life. And as far as like how policy evolves over time. I point to cannabis a lot. Cannabis is a very different issue. It's been presented in a completely different way. It wasn't heavy on the research, in the way that psychedelics was, but I saw how sideways cannabis conversations can get and how ineffective they have been with certain parts of the Republican Party that a lot of our advocacy was really informed of like, hey, let's keep this nonpartisan. Let's keep these issues squarely in the middle. Let's focus on the science. We have a body of data already.

But I guess is it possible for it to stay nonpartisan when you have voices like President Trump and RFK Jr. In the mix here? Because we've seen polling data, how unpopular a lot of their rhetoric around vaccines have been. They've kind of had to pull some of that back. The new nominee for the CDC director is a little more moderate on those issues. So is there a risk that this ends up looking too far, too fast for some Americans?

Yeah, there's always that risk, right? And that's kind of why, you know, our organization wasn't necessarily pursuing an executive order. But we knew that there was this issue of the White House hadn't come out and took a stand on this. So it's like, this could potentially backfire. But you know like I said, I know the Secretary of Health has had some ideas that haven't been really popular within the scientific community and within the public that have really. Required him to change course on some of the things he wants to prioritize. But like I said, there is such a strong body of data that supports psychedelic assisted care. And there are folks within government that are doing the right things and making sure the bar is not being lowered. So, you know, we just have to be sure that our advocacy and the advocacy of those who work alongside of us. Remains focused on the science of this and the right proper integration of this into healthcare. And if things start going sideways, we'll have to recalibrate.

'This policy creates a strict science-based pathway for FDA approval and controlled medical use. The bottom line is progress in mental health treatment has not matched the scale of the problem.

But I haven't heard anything from Secretary Kennedy's administration or any of the other corners that are really involved in the psychedelic world from the government side, that there's any intent to sacrifice any of that. You know, the quality of this work always has to remain high. And yeah, this can always go sideways. But I don't know if it's going to. And my hope is that. There's a big like PR push with this EO that's happening right now. And when that dies down, the work is just like continuing and we will be adaptable to whatever comes our way. But the intent is to not sacrifice.

Well, Melissa, thank you for talking to me. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, I appreciate it.

It's all we've got today. Thank you very much for listening. We've got another episode coming your way on Sunday. I'll talk to you then.