When President Donald Trump signed an executive order this spring to speed up FDA approval of psychedelic treatments, he echoed a push for healing long championed in California. I know these benefits myself--but also devastation.

In 2023, my husband and I enrolled in a clinical trial using MDMA (commonly known as ecstasy). I found this exploration transformative, but my husband Kurt suffered a nervous breakdown from which he is only now emerging. His prolonged collapse was exacerbated by mental health professionals untrained in psychedelic-related disturbances. Fast-tracking these substances without proper education is a prescription for harm.

The study Kurt and I joined in early 2023 was a dyad program for cancer patients and their caregivers. Four years before, he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which has a five-year survival rate of 13 percent. He sought psychedelic-assisted therapy to deal with debilitating fear of recurrence, along with trauma from treatment. We were told we could work on other issues too. He chose to try to address cyclical anxiety-based depression he'd carried since high school. I selected PTSD related to childhood sexual abuse.

Abiding by protocols established by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which developed MDMA-assisted therapy, we had two dosing days several weeks apart, with therapy before, during and between sessions and a few days after. We were encouraged to find an "integration therapist," a clinician trained in processing what surfaces after intense, mood-altering........

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