U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at accelerating research into the therapeutic benefits of certain psychedelic drugs by directing federal agencies to reduce restrictions and bureaucratic hurdles that have long limited scientists’ ability to study them.
The order covers substances such as LSD, MDMA, and psilocybin, while also opening the door to broader clinical trials and allowing some investigational treatments to be used for terminally ill patients even before receiving final approval from the Food and Drug Administration.
It also provides $50 million to support state-level ibogaine research, a move that will directly benefit Texas, which had already committed the same amount to studying the substance.
The administration says the step comes amid a worsening mental health crisis, rising opioid overdose deaths, and an increasing number of suicides among veterans.
According to the text, the order will not immediately change the legal classification of these substances, but it creates a mechanism to ease restrictions on compounds that advance through the regulatory approval process, which could help speed decisions on cases such as MDMA.
(Analysis)
The move marks a clear shift in Washington’s approach to this file:
- from the strict prohibition model inherited from the war on drugs to a regulated medical-use framework.
- But that does not mean the path is fully open, because the final outcome will still depend on clinical trial results and approvals from regulatory bodies.
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