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- [00:00]
Will Stone
This message comes from NPR sponsor Carvana. Your time is worth more than a waiting game. Carvana gives you a transparent offer for your car in minutes and picks it up from your door. Sell your car today@carvana.com pickup fees may apply.
- [00:20]
Tamara Keith
Hey there. It's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics.
- [00:24]
Domenico Montanaro
And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
- [00:27]
Tamara Keith
And NPR health correspondent Will Stone is back with us. Hello, Will.
- [00:31]
Will Stone
Hey there.
- [00:32]
Tamara Keith
Today on the show, President Trump signed an executive order to fast track medical research into psychedelic drugs after a push by podcaster and influencer Joe Rogan. This is what Rogan said during the signing ceremony in the Oval Office this past weekend.
- [00:49]
Domenico Montanaro
I sent him that information. The text message came back, sounds great.
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Will Stone
Do you want FDA approval? Let's do was literally that quick.
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Tamara Keith
We will get to the Rogan of it all in a moment. But Will, what kind of drugs are we talking about here? And why is this something that would rise to the level of the president?
- [01:11]
Will Stone
Sure. I mean, we're talking about mdma, psilocybin, lsd, other kinds of psychedelics. We've seen this real revival, a renaissance of research into these compounds, you know, know, after many years when that was shut down because of the war on drugs. And really in the past decade, institutions all over the country and researchers have set up centers to study psychedelics. We have biotech companies investing in these therapies for a lot of different mental health conditions, in particular depression, ptsd, substance use disorder, anxiety. And so there are lot of caveats here. You know, the research still has a long way to go and there's a lot of hype, but there really are at this point promising data from some of these trials. And we could see, you know, FDA approval in the near future for some of these substances.
- [02:05]
Tamara Keith
So other than than Joe Rogan, who is pushing for this, well, a big
- [02:10]
Will Stone
and very prominent voice in the movement have been these veterans groups. It's been actually pivotal, it seems, especially, I would say, in changing the image of these drugs. Right. As being kind of associated hippies, counterculture. In recent years, we've had lots of veterans groups talking about the mental health crisis, the suicide crisis among veterans and saying that they found real relief from their symptoms by seeking out psychedelics, sometimes having to go outside of the country for that. And so they have been pushing for FDA to look at these drugs seriously. And we've also seen, you know, conservatives, especially folks, it seems like from Texas, former Governor Rick Perry and others behind this movement as well. And it did Seem, based on the discussion in the Oval Office this past weekend that was particularly critical for winning over the president.
- [03:07]
Domenico Montanaro
You know, this is a really strange political inversion because, you know, Will mentioned the war on drugs. The Just say no campaign was launched by the Reagan administration and especially pushed by First Lady Nancy Reagan. And, you know, Trump, Trump's first Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, I remember in 2016 saying during a congressional hearing, good people don't smoke marijuana. That is a quote. And so to hear this coming from this side of the political aisle now would really sort of surprise a lot of people who've been following the Republican Party for a very long time. But because you have this intersection of veterans and like Will said, a lot of officials in Texas, very red state, a lot of Republican lawmakers who have been pushing for this. Texas is spending about $50 million to study a lot of this to treat traumatic brain injuries. And it's a state with a lot of veterans. And look, you've got this intersection with Joe Rogan, who has a podcast that a lot of young men, veterans, et cetera, listen to. And it was key to Trump's winning the presidency for the second time around in 2024.
- [04:15]
Tamara Keith
Yeah. Let's hear a little bit more from that signing ceremony in the Oval Office where Trump gave Rogan a lot of credit.
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Domenico Montanaro
I got a call from a number
- [04:23]
Will Stone
of people, including the great Joe Rogan,
- [04:26]
Domenico Montanaro
and he said, we have to do something about this.
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Will Stone
And I looked into it.
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Domenico Montanaro
I called Bobby, I called Oz, I called Marty and Jay, and it was
- [04:35]
Will Stone
really, it was uniform support.
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Tamara Keith
And I guess we should explain that. Bobby is Health and Human Services secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. Marty is Marty Makary, who is the FDA commissioner. And Jay Bhattacharya is at the National Institutes of Health.
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Domenico Montanaro
And Oz is Dr. Oz, who was on TV for a very long time and now runs the center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
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Tamara Keith
Yes, yes. So that those are the guys who Trump had around him in the room. Domenico, I do wanna ask, like, what do you make of Rogan's involvement here? This. This comes at a time when President Trump has been having some trouble with a lot of the podcasters who got him into office. And Rogan himself has been critical of the war in Iran.
- [05:23]
Domenico Montanaro
Yeah, it does come at that time, doesn't it? You know, and Ro, critical of a lot of the things that Trump has done in this first year or so of his second term in office. He was outspoken when it came to the handling of deportation policies. And he has a very large megaphone. He's somebody who reaches an audience that was, again, critical to Trump winning the presidency in 2024. And Trump wants to be able to keep them on board. We've been talking in past podcasts about how the Maha movement make America Healthy again is not exactly totally enamored with Trump and what his administration has been doing on a host of issues. And look, it's a group of people that Trump wants to keep on his side.
- [06:06]
Will Stone
And I don't think it was totally a coincidence, right, that even the optics of this. Rogan was right behind President Trump during the signing.
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Tamara Keith
Yeah. Will, can I just ask you, like, the science of this? I'm trying to understand why these psychedelics are seen as, by some, as almost like miracle drugs for mental health.
- [06:25]
Will Stone
Well, there's still a lot of questions about exactly how these drugs work in the brain. But what we've seen in a number of trials using substances like psilocybin, like mdma, are that, you know, it's possible just one or two experiences or treatments with these medications can actually, you know, meaningfully lead to changes in symptoms, reductions in symptoms, sometimes in total remission. And it's viewed as possibly a paradigm shift here. Right. Because instead of having to take a drug for years or maybe your whole life, there's a possibility that these substances can actually just do that in, in the course of one or two treatments.
- [07:09]
Tamara Keith
And do the treatments include also sort of therapeutic talk or how, how does it work?
- [07:15]
Will Stone
So it depends on the substance and the trial, the protocols. All of this is still being studied. There have been some treatments tested where it is paired with kind of psychotherapy. But increasingly, the companies that are pursuing some of these trials and trying to hopefully get these drugs approved are looking at more. As you do a session, you go in there, you're in a quiet room, there might be some music, you have this mostly inner directed experience, and then around that or later, there'll be some processing in talk therapy.
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Tamara Keith
Yeah. That is fascinating. Will, let's get back to this executive order from the president. From a practical standpoint, what will it do?
- [08:00]
Will Stone
Yeah. So the order directs, you know, federal health agencies to prioritize research and collaborate more on this. It also could speed up FDA's review of psychedelic drugs at least by a few months. Once an application is submitted, it calls for the attorney General to be ready to reschedule the substances once the trials are complete. And it could make unapproved drugs available for patients who are terminally ill through the Right to Try law. Although there is an existing way to do this already through FDA. On top of that, it sets aside $50 million to match state funding for psychedelic therapy. And we mentioned Texas already, it seems that may go to Texas, although it's not clear yet, because that state was looking for just that same amount of money to help fund its research efforts there.
- [08:53]
Tamara Keith
All right. Let's take a quick break, and we will be right back.
- [08:57]
Will Stone
This message comes from NPR sponsor Carvana. Your time is worth more than a waiting game. Carvana gives you a transparent offer for your car in minutes and picks it up from your door. Sell your car today@carvana.com pickup fees may apply.
- [09:14]
Tamara Keith
Every episode of NPR's It's Been a Minute podcast starts with a question about
- [09:18]
Domenico Montanaro
how culture shapes our lives. Are we spending too much on other people's weddings?
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Tamara Keith
Is social media bad for your mental health? We're here for your right to be curious.
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Domenico Montanaro
One big question at a time.
- [09:32]
Tamara Keith
Follow It's Been A Minute, wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And we mentioned MAHA briefly, but will, I want to ask you how this fits in with what Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Sort of the father of Maha, what he's been trying to do?
- [09:53]
Will Stone
Yeah, well, psychedelics were flagged as a priority by Kennedy kind of right after the election as part of his Make America Healthy Again movement. Actually, he had this now infamous social media post where he talks about ending the FDA's war on public health. And he the first thing he lists that's being suppressed were psychedelics. So this has been a big priority. And he's spoken about the promise of psychedelics. And I think it also fits into the kind of larger Maha ideology here. And a core piece of that is really suspicion about Big Pharma and institutions. And psychedelics are exciting because, as we mentioned, they have the potential to kind of upend the traditional model of, you know, kind of Western medicine, psychiatry, where you take something like an antidepressant, an ssri. They're being really positioned by some of the Maha camp. And you saw this during the signing as kind of an alternative to psychiatric medications like SSRIs and antidepressants, which have been vilified to some extent by Kennedy and others. And I think there's also just this appeal to, you know, these ancient cultures that have used these natural compounds, you know, for eons. And the idea that we can really shift to kind of a different model in how we treat mental health, you
- [11:17]
Tamara Keith
know, this effort by the Trump administration doesn't come completely out of nowhere. The FDA in the Biden administration also looked into potential medicinal uses of psychedelics. Will, are there lessons from that experience?
- [11:31]
Will Stone
That's right, and I think there are. So at the end of the Biden administration, just to recap, there was an effort by a drug company called Lycos to get mdma, this is the active ingredient, like an ecstasy or in Molly, approved for the treatment of ptsd. And it was a highly watched, very contentious process. And there was a lot of controversy that erupted around just the data in the trials, how they had been conducted. There were even some kind of troubling allegations of misconduct. All of this really muddied the waters. And it eventually led a panel of advisors to the FDA to reject the treatment. And, you know, folks were kind of split over what should have happened there. I will say that these kind of military veteran groups and other advocates had pushed very hard to get this approved, despite all the concerns and the data and really drawing attention to the unmet need, the mental health crisis. And so some were quite upset with the FDA and the Biden administration. And so I think this is a clear, full throated kind of endorsement by the Trump administration making the point that we are not the Biden FDA and we are very much open to the potential of approving these drugs.
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Domenico Montanaro
Except, of course, his order doesn't make it legal. It doesn't mean that it opens up access. It really is kind of symbolic as Will is talking about here. You know, and Trump signed an executive order to reschedule marijuana from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3 so that people wouldn't be as criminally liable. And that's hit some road bumps and it's been frustrating for the President. But, you know, once you get into these interagency reviews, it takes quite a bit of time for the medical experts within the government to look at these things. And, you know, they don't exactly work at the speed of Trump.
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Tamara Keith
And Trump can be impatient. I am wondering, Will, if there are concerns out there that because of the President signing this executive order, because of the sort of push here from the White House, that the FDA might be pushed to rush the approvals?
- [13:46]
Will Stone
I mean, that's certainly a question. And there's an interesting kind of element to this, which is one of the psychedelics that got repeatedly mentioned during the signing and in the executive order is ibogaine. And this comes from a West African shrub. And of all the psychedelics to be talking about, this has not much data at all, and it has significant safety risks associated with it. Now, there has been a movement among veterans to go Outside of the country, places like Mexico and to use this, and some have reported really life changing, very meaningful results. But when you think about kind of what is ready for prime time and FDA approval, ibogaine is not it. And you did hear President Trump kind of saying during the signing, well, don't we kind of have enough already? It sounds like it works. And so I think, you know, researchers in this area are always trying to be cautious and, you know, thoughtful about how they describe the evidence base. And there has been a lot of hype around psychedelics. So I think we'll see how this translates. The FDA commissioner was there and said that they plan to issue these priority review vouchers for several psychedelics that will be submitted to the FDA for a drug application in the near future.
- [15:04]
Domenico Montanaro
Yeah, and a couple things here too. You know, just politically there's been a bipartisan push on drugs that are seen as right to try that fall under that umbrella. I mean, I remember President Obama sort of pushing for that when it comes to terminal cancer patients who wanted to try other drugs and trials to be part of it, even if they don't have those long term longitudinal studies that are attached to them. So I do think that that's something that's picked up momentum in this country regardless of political party in many respects. Also, there's money to be made. There's groups that are psychedelic makers that their stocks were up 25%, for example, one company on Monday based on this announcement. But you wonder how that'll continue as the process sort of grinds the gears.
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Tamara Keith
Domenico, I don't know if we can tease this out, but was this about science or was this about politics for the President?
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Domenico Montanaro
I think it's about who the president trusts in the information that he receives. I mean, there's been a huge, you know, movement in the MAGA right to not trust experts. We've heard Vice President J.D. vance, for example, say that the experts have gotten it wrong in the past. So why should we trust the experts? So Joe Rogan is one of the people who's been at the sort of, you know, heart of the do your own research crowd, right? And saying that this thing works. I've heard this thing. They promote a lot of supplements, things like testosterone, for example, in use. And Dr. Oz was somebody who on his shows got a lot of flack for the fact that he was pushing supplements and also benefiting in taking money from some of those supplement companies. You know, so this is part of, I think, a movement away from that sort of peer review diligent processes because you've got people who will say, hey, this thing worked for me. I trust that person. That person has the ear of the president. And the president says, good, let's do it.
- [17:02]
Will Stone
Despite all the politics surrounding this and questions about the exact priorities, you talk to researchers in this space who've toiled away at this for many years. It's very hard to study these substances. It's hard to raise funding. And they're pretty blown away by the fact that we have a sitting president, you know, extolling the virtues of these drugs which remain federally illegal. And even if, you know, some of the specific provisions may not have a huge impact, this symbolic weight and the fact that it changes the perception around psychedelics, it makes it clear the federal government wants to support these drugs that could really lead to meaningful new investments, either from the government or from nonprofits in other areas.
- [17:48]
Domenico Montanaro
And look, something like ptsd. Post Traumatic Stress disorder is a very real thing, especially for a generation of soldiers who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. And when you're in that tunnel and something works for you, it's life changing. And that's what a lot of these veterans groups have been pushing for and why.
- [18:05]
Tamara Keith
All right. Let's leave it there for today. Thank you, Will, for being with us again.
- [18:10]
Will Stone
Happy to do it.
- [18:11]
Tamara Keith
Tomorrow on the show, we'll turn your attention to the midterm elections. Don't miss it. Hit the follow button. Wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Tamara Keith and I cover politics.
- [18:21]
Domenico Montanaro
And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
- [18:24]
Tamara Keith
And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics podcast.