Why Trump reversed course to fast-track psychedelic drugs for mental healthcare

Marie Phelan said she had never heard of MDMA before spotting a flyer seeking veterans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. Now, she says the psychoactive drug more commonly known as ecstasy or molly has changed the trajectory of her life. "My experience of MDMA was that it just cracked my heart wide open," said Phelan who enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve in 1999 and was deployed to Iraq in 2003. "I was carrying this big heavy rucksack and I just put it down on the beach and I started unpacking it one little teeny tiny thing at a time and setting each little thing out on the waves," Phelan said of the release from the treatment. Phelan isn't alone turning to alternative treatments for trauma. She is among a small group of Americans who have undergone psychedelic-assisted therapy through clinical trials studying new approaches to mental health treatment. Now, access to those therapies is closer than ever to being expanded more broadly, bringing new options for patients and opportunities for companies — but also new scrutiny about safety and effectiveness. In April , President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at accelerating research into psychedelic drugs for mental illness. The move came as his administration issued priority review vouchers to three companies developing psychedelic or MDMA-like therapies — Compass Pathways , Usona Institute and Transcend Therapeutics — aimed at speeding up parts of the FDA review process. …