Bipartisan congressional lawmakers are asking leadership to instruct federal health agencies to include active duty military service members in psychedelic studies.
In a letter led by Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) to House Appropriations subcommittee leaders, the lawmakers said that language should be added to upcoming spending legislation for the 2024 Fiscal Year directing the National Institutes on Health (NIH) to be inclusive of military members in ongoing research into the therapeutic benefits of substances like MDMA.
“As the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world, this directive for the NIH would expand government wide efforts to understand the potential risks and benefits of psychedelic-assisted therapy to this critical population,” the eleven lawmakers wrote.
“We need new approaches to adequately address the threat of trauma-related disorders and chronic pain to both active-duty and veteran servicemembers,” it says, noting the high prevalence of conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among the military population.
The letter, sent to the subcommittee leaders late last month and released on Thursday, cites the fact that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Phase 3 clinical trials into MDMA in the treatment of PTSD, which promising preliminary results.
“This landmark data underscores the need
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