The head of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is reiterating his commitment to exploring the efficacy of psychedelic medicines to address serious mental health conditions that commonly afflict military veterans.<\/p>\n
During a hearing before the Senate Veterans\u2019 Affairs Committee on Tuesday, Sen. John Boozman (R-AR) asked VA Secretary Doug Collins to expand on the agency\u2019s plans around the issue, referencing recent comments the official made about psychedelics during a Cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n Boozman said the committee is \u201cvery interested\u201d in the issue as it seeks to find solutions for veterans suffering from conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI).<\/p>\n In response to the senator\u2019s question, Collins said he is \u201ccommitted to doing whatever we can to provide veterans and those who have maybe not responded to traditional care and others, especially in the area of PTS and also TBI\u2014the other issues that we\u2019re dealing with that lead to a lot of what we\u2019ve seen in suicide and death by suicide.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo we\u2019re looking at it right now,\u201d Collins, a former GOP congressman, said.<\/p>\n The secretary said VA is either conducting or supporting 11 studies exploring the therapeutic potential of psychedelics, including one recent clinical trial on MDMA that\u2019s showing \u201csome really good results\u201d among participants after a single dose followed by two weeks of therapy.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m willing to say this: I want to work with\u2014and I said this with [the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] and with others\u2014that we make sure that we\u2019re not closing off any outlet for a veteran who could be helped by these programs,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I think we\u2019ll definitely be working with Congress on that if there seems to be something else we need.\u201d<\/p>\n Collins has previously said he had an \u201ceye-opening\u201d talk with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.<\/a> about psychedelics issues and intended to press Congress to act.<\/p>\n Later in the Senate committee hearing<\/a> on Tuesday, the secretary said again that, within VA, \u201cwe\u2019ve talked about how can we do tap into research into maybe psychedelics or other things that help, getting in more with our [veteran service organizations] and our nonprofits to actually make a difference here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n \u201cI think this is something we\u2019ve got to have,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Collins has also previously said that he\u2019s open to the idea of having the government provide vouchers to cover the costs of psychedelic therapy for veterans who receive services outside of VA as Congress considers pathways for access.<\/p>\n In December, VA separately announced that it\u2019s providing $1.5 million in funding to\u00a0study the efficacy of MDMA-assisted therapy for veterans<\/a>\u00a0with PTSD and alcohol use disorder (AUD).<\/p>\n Last year, Rachel Yehuda, who has overseen some psychedelic research as director of mental health at VA\u2019s James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center, also touted an initial study the agency funded that produced\u00a0\u201cstunning and robust results\u201d from its first-ever clinical trial into MDMA therapy<\/a>.<\/p>\n In January, former VA Under Secretary for Health Shereef Elnahal said that it was \u201cvery encouraging\u201d that Trump\u2019s pick to have Kennedy lead HHS has supported psychedelics reform. And he\u00a0hoped to work with him on the issue if he stayed on<\/a>\u00a0for the next administration, but that didn\u2019t pan out.<\/p>\n Pennsylvania Governor Will Put Marijuana Legalization In His Budget, But Top GOP Senator Remains Skeptical<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The post Trump\u2019s VA Secretary Tells Senators That Psychedelics Have Potential To Mitigate The Veteran Suicide Crisis<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The head of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is reiterating his commitment to exploring the efficacy of psychedelic medicines to address serious mental health conditions that commonly afflict military veterans. During a hearing before the Senate Veterans\u2019 Affairs Committee on Tuesday, Sen. John Boozman (R-AR) asked VA SecretaryContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81,126],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81148"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81148"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81149,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81148\/revisions\/81149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Trump\u2019s VA Secretary Tells Senators That Psychedelics Have Potential To Mitigate The Veteran Suicide Crisis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"