Donald Trump signs the decree that revolutionizes psychiatry in the USA: fast track for psilocybin and MDMA against depression and PTSD in veterans.
It’s hard to think of anything further from Donald Trump of hippies. But, as we know, the American president never ceases to amaze, so much so that he has “contaminated” his mandate with the psychedelic substances made famous in the 1960s by the flower children. Last April, in fact, in the Oval Office, he signed the executive order “Accelerating medical treatments for serious mental illness”. Behind him, beyond the officials of the White House and the Secretary of Health, Robert F. Kennedy Jrthe hugely popular podcaster stood out Joe Rogana strong supporter of the use of hallucinogenic substances for healing purposes. The author of The Joe Rogan Experience he said he wrote to The Donald a message in this regard, receiving as a response: «Good idea. Do you want FDA approval? Let’s proceed.” No sooner said than done.
The executive order is clear: the mental health crisis, which every year claims thousands of victims among war veterans – affected by post-traumatic stress syndrome (Ptsd) – and young Americans are increasingly frail, it can no longer be managed with traditional medications. The decree requires the Food and drug administration to give absolute priority to the review of drugs based on psilocybin (the active ingredient of hallucinogenic mushrooms) e Mdma (the ecstasy molecule), guaranteeing them a “fast track” for medical approval. But the real protagonist of the initiative is theibogainea powerful alkaloid derived from an African root, for which they were intended 50 million dollars for federal research. The US administration’s stated goal is to remedy the catastrophic opioid addiction, a plague that affects at least 3 million Americans. Trump also expanded the Right to Try (the right to try), allowing desperate patients to access these experimental therapies without waiting for long bureaucratic delays.
Trump and the psychedelic breakthrough against depression
The tycoon’s move is not a mere media act, but the beginning of a real revolution which, in fact, deals a blow to the “War on drugs” declared by Richard Nixon in 1971, transforming some of the banned and demonized substances into the new gamble of venture capitalism. In addition to theFDAIn fact, the decree also affects the work of the Goddess (Drug enforcement administration). For decades, the drug enforcement agency has locked these substances into “Schedule I,” the black list of drugs with no therapeutic value and a high risk of abuse. Trump’s order dismantles the prohibitionist fort, requiring the federal body to remove the bureaucratic obstacles that prevent researchers from obtaining licenses to study these molecules and, above all, imposes a legal automatism for their reclassification. Once the medical clearance has been obtained, the Goddess will therefore be forced by law to remove these molecules from the list of prohibited substances, opening the doors to their distribution in pharmacies.
The turning point comes after years of debate in the scientific community and beyond. The official clearance of the topic arrived in 2018, when the journalist Michael Pollan public How to change your mind. The essay explains to the general public what the laboratories of excellence offer Johns Hopkins toImperial Collegeuntil New York Universitywere already documenting: psychedelics are not “drugs” in the classic sense, but catalysts of neuronal plasticity. Terminally ill patients are also among the subjects indicated as beneficiaries of treatments based on these principles: psilocybin in fact it would help to mitigate the anguish and fear of imminent death.
Furthermore, the clinical studies cited in today’s debate show results that traditional antidepressants (the Ssrilike the Prozac) they never reached. A single dose of psilocybinadministered in a controlled therapeutic context, can induce a remission of depression that lasts months. We are therefore not talking about “masking” the symptoms, but about “reprogramming” the brain circuits, allowing the patient to escape from the infinite cycles of negative thoughts that characterize the Ptsddepression, obsessive compulsive disorder or end-of-life anxiety.
The boom in the biotechnology stock market and the Big Pharma model
But, as mentioned, Trump’s decision also has an enormous economic impact. In the 48 hours following the signing of the executive order, leading companies in the sector recorded surges in the stock market. Biotechnology giants such as Compass Pathways And Atai Life Sciences they jumped respectively by 15% and of 20%dragging with it an entire sector that until yesterday was considered mere visionary speculation. By signing the decree, in fact, The Donald has potentially rewritten the future of the pharmaceutical industry.
If successful, a psychedelic-based therapy would require only two or three doses to achieve lasting results, making the entire business model based on pills that people take, every day, for years or for a lifetime, obsolete. A total upheaval of psychiatry, which investors expect to come to fruition within the next two years. A historical, cultural and health caesura, with inestimable potential value. And, as always happens in the States, the biotechnological revolutions that smell of billions of dollars are intertwined with the profound power of Silicon Valley. Just think about Peter Thiel: the billionaire co-founder of PayPal And Palantir he was the first major investor to realize the potential of this trend. Through his funds, Thiel financed the birth of Compass Pathways in 2017, when the idea still seemed like scientific heresy. In 2020 the tycoon invested 12 million in Ataibut over the years the total funds paid to the pharmaceutical company have been estimated at more than double.
The axis between the White House and the billionaires of Silicon Valley
Thiel’s interest in psychedelics created a domino effect among other Big Tech heavyweights. Sergey Brin (co-founder of Google) is financing massively, through the fund Catalyst4research onibogaine to treat traumatic brain injuries in soldiers; Dustin Moscowitz (co-founder of Facebook) has poured millions into associations like the Maps to speed up the legalization ofMdma therapeutic, while Elon Musk (who has never made a secret of his preference for ketamine compared to traditional antidepressants) acted as a sort of “cultural vector”, promoting its use as a tool for optimizing mental performance. It couldn’t be missed Sam AltmanCEO of OpenAIwhich through its bottom Apollo Projects is pushing for convergence between Artificial intelligence and biotechnology. His bet is to use theYea to map brain receptors and synthesize new generation psychedelics, i.e. molecules capable of repairing neural connections in a few minutes, while eliminating the hallucinogenic effect, to make them mass products.
To fully understand the context in which Trump has cleared the research and future use of psychedelics for therapeutic use, it is essential to remember that Thiel is not just an investor in the field of the most visionary biotechnologies. The Frankfurt-born billionaire was also the main financier of the Trumpian movement Sorceress (Make America Great Again) in 2016 and, above all, is the political mentor of the vice president JD Vance.
Thiel has invested further 15 million dollars in the career of the current number two of the White Housethus ensuring the presence, alongside the president, of a figure capable of translating the company’s projects Silicon Valley in instances to be introduced into the government agenda. This unprecedented axis between the financial elite and executive power effectively makes psychedelic substances, born as an expression of an underground culture that aimed at escapism from reality, a national strategic asset. Now, all that remains is to see whether in the near future this revolution will really translate into a cure for the suffering of millions of people or whether it will become a new lever to consolidate another pharmaceutical monopoly, this time under the aegis of the pharmaceutical giants. Silicon Valley.
