Legislative Push Meets Bureaucratic Restraints
By Jack Gorsline
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) Federal psychedelic policy in 2026 is splitting in two directions at once. Lawmakers and military officials are building healthcare infrastructure for experimental therapeutics, while enforcement agencies freeze access pathways and move to criminalize new compounds. The same government that is fast-tracking psilocybin trials for veterans is using emergency powers to ban a ketamine analog that law enforcement has encountered 52 times in eight years.
Military and Congressional Infrastructure Pushes
The House Armed Services Committee has integrated new provisions into the Fiscal Year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, directing military leadership to investigate access pathways to psychedelic therapies for service members. Pointing to President Donald Trump’s recent executive order on the issue that was signed on April 18, the committee is compelling the Department of Defense to track lawful research into treatments for conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder, explicitly instructing the DOD to examine naturally derived whole-mushroom compounds administered in therapeutic settings. The defense secretary must submit a detailed report by Feb. 1, 2027, evaluating clinical trial data, outlining the regulatory framework necessary for broader access, and projecting a timeline to launch pilot programs and expand clinical research starting in fiscal year 2027.
This legislative push follows a recent DOD award of $4.9 million to Emory University and UT Health San Antonio to study MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD. The trial, which aims to enroll 100 active-duty military and reserve personnel to evaluate the synergistic effects of MDMA combined with prolonged exposure therapy, has already begun screening prospective participants for on-site research at Emory.
Concurrently, the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee (SVAC) reviewed the bipartisan Veterans Health Administration Novel Therapeutics Preparedness Act of 2026, known as S.4220, on April 29. Introduced by Sens. Tim Sheehy and Ruben Gallego, the legislation requires the Department of Veterans Affairs to establish an Office of Novel Therapeutics to develop clinical standards and readiness plans ahead of potential U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approvals for psychedelic compounds like psilocybin, ibogaine, and MDMA. The measure would also prohibit restrictive “step therapy” rules and establish a Veteran Advisory Committee to monitor patient safety.
Lawmakers and veteran advocates stressed the urgent need for these reforms, arguing that without proper infrastructure, veterans could wait years for care or risk their lives seeking dangerous, unregulated treatments abroad.
The push for this new VA infrastructure unfolds against a complex backdrop of federal funding threats, industry controversies, and rapid administrative action. While the administration’s proposed budget threatens major cuts to science agencies like the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), recent executive orders and FDA initiatives, such as awarding National Priority Vouchers to expedite reviews, are simultaneously accelerating the federal timeline for psychedelic medicines. At the same time, the growing psychedelics sector is facing heightened scrutiny, marked by ethics complaints over the mishandling of taxpayer data and alleged lobbying violations involving prominent political figures such as former Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and former California Rep. Mimi Walters, alongside her organization, The Association for Prescription Psychedelics (APP).
As for the broader psychedelic policy reform landscape on Capitol Hill, S.4220 is among three bills focused on psychedelics being reviewed this legislative session. Another is the Innovative Therapies Centers of Excellence Act of 2026, a proposal from Sens. Gallego and McCormick (R-PA) designed to establish dedicated VA facilities for the advancement of psychedelic treatments.
DEA Regulatory Friction and Stagnation
While the military’s expanding interest in psychedelics draws mainstream media attention, a separate federal reform effort at the Drug Enforcement Administration has stalled. Attorney Kathryn Tucker, co-counsel representing Dr. Sunil Aggarwal’s petition to reschedule psilocybin from Schedule I to Schedule II, has voiced significant concerns over recent delays. Last fall, the petition appeared to be advancing rapidly when the DEA forwarded it to the Department of Health and Human Services for scientific review, three years after Aggarwal’s initial legal challenge.
Yet despite Trump’s executive order aiming to streamline access to psychedelic medicines, and an anticipated FDA approval decision on Compass Pathways’ synthetic psilocybin compound, COMP360, expected in late 2026 or early 2027, progress has ground to a halt. In response, Tucker recently filed another motion urging the DEA and the Justice Department to act immediately on the years-old petition to allow terminally ill patients access to psilocybin, arguing that further delays are unjustified given the drug’s FDA breakthrough therapy designation.
Compounding this slowdown, the DEA announced its intent to use emergency scheduling powers to classify 2-fluorodeschloroketamine, a structural analog of ketamine known as 2-FDCK, as a Schedule I substance, effectively banning it. While the DEA claims the compound poses an imminent hazard to public safety, critics and drug policy reform advocates argue the move is an overreach, pointing out that law enforcement has encountered the drug only 52 times over the last eight years. Attorney Robert Rush, founder of The Rights and Reason Project, told Filter Magazine following the DEA’s announcement of the move that using emergency powers to bypass standard public hearings and scientific review will stifle research into promising new mental health treatments while pushing individuals toward increasingly dangerous, unregulated illicit drug markets.
Ibogaine Sourcing Challenges and FDA Leadership Reshuffle
At the same time, top Trump administration officials recently acknowledged that expanded access to ibogaine could face delays because of difficulties sourcing the psychoactive alkaloid for clinical research. Testifying before the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins highlighted the president’s recent executive order on psychedelics but noted that establishing a federal ibogaine supply poses logistical and financial challenges.
“We also have to have a federal source of sourcing the ibogaine, which we don’t have a costing on at this point,” Collins said. Despite the sourcing challenges, Collins said VA trials for MDMA are currently ahead of schedule. He emphasized the department is committed to exploring any treatment that helps veterans and is working with HHS to develop the rigorous clinical protocols required for the intensive therapies.
In a significant change for psychedelic drug developers seeking FDA approval over the next few years, the agency appointed Dr. Mike Davis as the new deputy director of its Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. A physician who recently served as chief medical officer for the psychedelic research group Usona Institute, Davis is returning to the FDA after previously working as a clinical team leader in its Psychiatry Division from 2018 to 2022. He rejoins the agency during a broader leadership transition. Former FDA Commissioner Marty Makary resigned on May 12, 2026, after clashing with the White House over Trump’s decision to approve flavored nicotine vapes, and former CDER Director Jacqueline Corrigan-Curay has retired.
The contradictions are not abstract. The VA is running MDMA trials ahead of schedule while the DEA moves to ban a ketamine analog without a public hearing. Congress is ordering the Pentagon to map access pathways to whole-mushroom psilocybin while a three-year-old rescheduling petition sits unanswered. And the administration’s own VA secretary has admitted there is no federal plan, and no price tag, for sourcing the ibogaine its veterans’ initiative depends on. Whatever reaches patients will be shaped less by the executive rhetoric than by which of these machines moves first.
Note: This article was produced in partnership with Psychedelic State(s) of America, a nonprofit-sponsored news organization dedicated to rigorous independent psychedelic journalism. Learn more about PSA’s Media Partnerships Program and donate to PSA’s Psychedelic Writers Guild Media Fund here.
