The Promise and Limits of Trump's Psychedelic Therapy Order |
Psychedelics
The Promise and Limits of Trump's Psychedelic Therapy Order
The president's facilitation of research and FDA review could help make psychedelics available to approved patients. But what about everyone else?
Jacob Sullum | 4.20.2026 3:40 PM
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(Allison Robbert/Pool via CNP/Zuma Press/Newscom)
The hugely popular, politically eclectic podcaster Joe Rogan, who endorsed Donald Trump in the 2024 election, says he recently sent the president information about ibogaine, a psychedelic whose boosters portray it as an astonishingly effective treatment for addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and other psychological problems. "The text message came back," Rogan said on Saturday as Trump signed an executive order aimed at "accelerating medical treatments for serious mental illness." According to Rogan, Trump replied: "Sounds great. Do you want FDA approval? Let's do it."
Trump's order may or may not result in ibogaine's approval as a psychotherapeutic catalyst. But it instructs the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to facilitate that goal by streamlining the review process for "appropriate psychedelic drugs," including ibogaine, and providing "at leasty $50 million from existing funds" to state programs investigating their potential. The FDA also is supposed to collaborate with the Department of Veterans Affairs on clinical trials.
In the meantime, Trump wants the FDA to facilitate access to psychedelics under the Right to Try Act. That law allows patients to use "investigational" drugs when they suffer from a "life-threatening disease or condition," have unsuccessfully tried other treatments, and are unable to participate in clinical trials.
Right to Try access is limited to drugs for which a Phase I clinical trial has been completed, which is not yet true for ibogaine. But a $50 million research program that Texas legislators approved last year, which promises matching grants for privately funded studies, aims to help fill that gap. And on Saturday, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary announced that the agency had just approved "the first iboga investigational new drug clearance," which "will pave the way for the first-ever human trials in the United States."
Trump's order highlights an upswing in the U.S. suicide rate during the last two decades, emphasizing that "veterans often suffer in greater measure from this tragedy." The order portrays ibogaine and other psychedelics as promising options for Americans "struggling with some of the most insidious mental illnesses." It notes that the FDA has recognized "specific psychedelic drugs," including MDMA and psilocybin, as "breakthrough" therapies, meaning they "may demonstrate substantial........