In 2023, former Texas governor and Trump energy secretary Rick Perry stepped onto the stage at a big conference put on by MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. Thank you. And he said what a lot of people in the crowd may have been thinking.

What in the hell is that dude doing on this stage? Talk about me.

Here was a member of the Republican Party, the party behind the war on drugs in the 1980s and all the PSAs that came with it.

This is your brain on drugs.

Speaking about the potential healing benefits of LSD, psilocybin, and ayahuasca.

I just know government can really f something up if we don't do this right. And I want us to make sure that we do it right.

'While some may have been surprised to see someone like Perry on that stage, the founder of MAPS, Rick Doblin, wasn't. He said, quote, "'It's not that I'm tripping, it's that culture is tipping.'" Well, two years later, the culture has tipped even further. Perry was instrumental in convincing Texas lawmakers to launch a taxpayer-funded study of a drug called Ibogaine. Some NFL players, including Aaron Rodgers and former Jet Safety Kerry Rhodes, say psychedelics have done wonders for their mental health. And in Washington, D.C.

You know, the preliminary results are very, very encouraging and it's something that we want to pursue.

'Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And FDA Chief Dr. Marty McCary are promising to speed up the review process for some of these potential treatments. So how did this shift happen? And do advocates think Republicans embracing mind-altering drugs is the right move? Today, part two of our series on psychedelics in the Trump era with Jane C Hu. She's a science journalist and the head writer of The Microdose, a sub-stack newsletter supported by the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics. From CNN, this is One Thing. I'm David Rind. We're back after this.

So can we step back? America has been doing research on psychedelics for decades, right? Like, where does this story actually start?

Oh, man, depending on who you talk to. People, I mean, of course, for some of these substances, they've been used for millennia or time immemorial, but I feel like in the US, the traditional story of psychedelics really starts in the 60s because it had really reached the mainstream at that point.

Five years ago, by accident in Mexico, I took Mexican mushrooms.

There was existing research and some of those studies definitely had some ethical lapses. Like we are probably all familiar with Timothy Leary and his expulsion from Harvard.

'Leary, a Harvard researcher, claimed his mushroom-induced psychotic trip was so spiritual, it led him and a generation to...

Turn on. Tune in.

But I think some of it honestly was just cultural.

America's public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse.

Like, I don't know that it was necessarily a backlash to the research more than a backlash to recreational use of these substances, which folks were feeling kind of squirrely about.

Do you play anything besides the sweet potato?

Yes, the drums, cougar drums, and trumpet.

Is that good for society, that a lot of these young people wanna, you know, drop acid and tune out a little bit?

So like there was research going on in labs to kind of study this stuff, but at the same time there was counterculture. There was hippies taking this stuff and those two things kind of didn't get along in the minds of top officials.

I think that was part of it, especially when the Reagan administration came in.

Drugs are menacing our society. They're threatening our values and undercutting our institutions.

That's when kind of the Controlled Substances Act, as we know it, really kind of took hold and was enforced heavily.

It's time, as Nancy said, for America to just say no to drugs.

Hi, I'm Venus Williams, and I want to talk to you about believing in yourself, about your dreams, and how dare can make your dreams come true.

I think those of us who grew up in the, you know, just say no era of dare are familiar with the fallout from that.

Most kids don't use drugs or join gangs, they just want to live safe and healthy lives.

Folks were still being taught in schools that these drugs were something to avoid and had no accepted medical purpose, had no potential to be useful to folks. But I do think that over the last, let's say 15 years here of psychedelics being part of the research world again, that has really changed, especially in the last I would say five years in talking to folks who have been active. I think public sentiment is really. Starting to change.

Is there any one thing that experts look to and say, this is why this is happening at this point?

I feel like part of the public sentiment changing is really trying to get more bipartisan support.

I'm about to send a law that will lead to an FDA approved drug development clinical trial that will seek approval of Ibogaine as a medication for the treatment of opioid use disorder and other behavioral health conditions.

I think in the last few years, there's been a lot of emphasis on people's personal stories of healing. And in particular, it seems like a lot psychedelic advocates have been trying really hard to bring the veteran perspective into things.

And we heard story after story of people who went and got treatment, credible actors, and felt it had improved their lives, whether it was an opioid addiction or other issues they were dealing with. It made an impact.

As a result though, that means that rather than psychedelics being seen for so long as kind of a hippie, lefty, liberal thing, that people who might not traditionally have been interested in psychedelics are hearing from folks who are maybe on the more conservative side of the spectrum. And this bipartisan support, I think, has also really set the stage for more funding in just general higher level support.

Texas is now leading the way in the United States for the evaluation of ibogaine as a potential medication that can help improve the lives of so many Americans.

Well, so there's been a lot of action on the state level in various states. Can you describe some of the recent moves that some of these states have taken to study this stuff?

Yeah, so the big one is that in 2020, Oregon passed Measure 109, which was a ballot initiative that started psilocybin services in their state. So what that means is essentially anyone who wanted to try psilocybin could sign up to go to a service center to receive the drug only under the supervision of a... Licensed professional. So unlike things like cannabis, where you go to a dispensary and you buy the drug and you can do whatever you want with it and take it home with you. This was like a highly regulated situation where folks really are going to be supervising the entire time. There's preparation sessions, there's a lot of paperwork. A lot of the focus has been on safety with that. Just a couple of years ago, that program actually ended up. Launching. So they've been seeing clients now for I think about two years. And then in 2022, Colorado followed suit by passing a similar ballot initiative, which also leaves the door open for giving folks other drugs as well, including Ibogaine or DMT. Those are kind of the two big states that have made big moves towards making psilocybin state legal. New Mexico is actually next. I think they're really just trying to figure out what the rules are going to be. But there are many other states that have passed a variety of bill types, which is a huge change from even just two or three years ago when I first started tracking it.

So on the federal level, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Has signaled that he would be open to speeding up the approval process into some of these therapies. What does he do for this movement? Are advocates embracing him or do they want someone that controversial being on their side here?

Really depends on who you talk to. There are some people who are really excited about more support at a federal level for these substances. Others are, like you say, a little bit skeptical about having RFK support in particular, just given his stances on some other important health and medical issues. I've talked to some folks who have said that they are concerned that trying to speed up that approval process. Will compromise the integrity of the research and data that exists for it and could lead to a later backlash. For folks who might not be familiar, last summer, a company called Lycos tried to get approval for MDMA and the FDA did not accept their application. I believe they're still going back and forth trying to figure out what kind of research they need to do to kind of reapply or reconsider that application. But folks are wondering, you know, is this move from the federal government going to affect the status of Lycosis application for MDMA? Are other companies going to try and go for this accelerated acceptance process potentially. There are still questions remaining about how the public will view that and also how investors would view that if that's the route they tried.

How rigorous is the research and testing needed to get FDA approval for something like this?

Quite high. I think the other interesting wrinkle with psychedelic drugs that traditional drugs may not face is that for most of these psychedelic substances that are in clinical trials, the participants are not only getting the drug, they're also getting some kind of therapy or some kind of monitoring. So as a result. It's hard to know what the contribution of the drug is versus the support or therapy. And in many cases, people think that those two things can't and shouldn't be dissociated from one another.

That sounds extremely tricky. I'm also thinking about placebo controlled trials, right? It would be pretty obvious if you're getting MTMA.

'That has been a huge topic of discussion is how do you make sure that participants are not sure which they're getting? And the answer seems to be you can't. So people are trying to figure out what is the role of expectation when you're in a psychedelic clinical trial and also moving forward with new research, what is best way to account for that if you can do the traditional placebo-controlled trial.

I know you mentioned, you know, veteran stories and just more stories in general as a reason that, you know more voices on the right and some of these states might be more open these days to starting some of this research, embracing some of the says the possible therapy, but you know not to be deeply cynical, but you can only be me. Can we chalk this up simply to some groups see this as a moment where they can get in on the ground floor of big business. And ride it to approval and beyond. I know a lot of people say this is truly transformational from a healing medical standpoint, but does money not play a role here?

Oh, absolutely. Just like any other sector, I'm sure there are folks who are seeing dollar signs and want to get in. But I do also think that there are plenty of people with good intentions who genuinely believe in the possibility that this could be useful to people. But yeah, it's been interesting so far that we haven't seen a ton of investment from the big, big pharma companies. But some of the speculation is they might just be waiting to see how this all plays out and then to make their investments accordingly.

But we are seeing investment from types like Peter Thiel comes to mind, big tech investor, and he's been big into psychedelics as well.

Yeah, no, definitely a lot of tech folks who are putting their money towards this for sure.

'Are there any groups out there that might not want this to be so rubber-stamped by the government, commercialized, commodified? Because I'm thinking back to this conversation I had last week with this veteran who was really taken in by the ritualistic aspect and how Native American tribes, for example, have used this going back centuries, and it's a big part of their spirituality. For example, big pharma comes in and kind of takes this over. I imagine that's problematic.

For sure. There are a lot of grassroots groups, especially with state legislation or ballot initiatives who have tried really hard to try and represent that perspective in particular. So rather than having a state regulated or I guess eventually federally regulated potentially system with psychedelics, a lot of folks are more interested in decriminalization for that exact reason that they are hoping to have full control and the right to be able to use these substances in whatever way that they see fit without a ton of red tape or supervision from the government.

I guess stepping back a bit, you talked earlier about the history of the Republican Party clamping down on illegal substances, the war on drugs in the 1980s. Is there a sense that in this moment, the rights relationship with controlled substances is changing even beyond psychedelics?

You know, that's a good question. I'm not quite sure to be honest, but that does bring to mind for me how different drugs have always just had different reputations, depending on what society is going through with that moment. I think it's interesting that these drugs in particular are coming back right now. I feel like we're seeing kind of more of a backlash to alcohol than before. Um, I think really. Seeing the pendulum swing from psychedelics are controlled drugs and therefore bad to actually maybe there is something to them that could be useful really calls into question a lot of our societally held beliefs about which drugs are good or bad or if drugs can be so strictly delineated in that way.

Maybe this says more about society and its relationships to substances like this than any political party and how they kind of feel about things.

Absolutely. I mean, it's also been interesting seeing psychedelic advocates' attitudes towards what are legal drugs. Like, for instance, a lot of folks are thinking about psychedelics as a potential substitute for antidepressants like Prozac. And a lot folks are very down on those drugs in particular and see this as a more natural alternative. And I think the public sentiments with kind of shifting towards those SSRIs is also kind of an interesting reflection of how what's going on in society really determines how we think about these drugs.

'Jane C. Hoo is a science journalist and the writer of the sub-stack newsletter, The Microdose. One Thing is a CNN podcast production. This episode was produced by Paola Ortiz and me, David Rind. Our showrunner is Felicia Patinkin. Our senior producer is Faiz Jamil. Matt Dempsey is our production manager. Dan Dzula is our technical director. And Steve Lickteig is the executive producer of CNN podcasts. We get support from Alex Manasseri, Mark Duffy, Robert Mathers, John Dianora, Leni Steinhardt, James Andres, Nicole Pesaru, and Lisa Namerow. Special thanks to Catherine Dillinger and Wendy Brundage. We'll be back on Wednesday. I'll talk to you then.