Why Trump is encouraging psychedelics for mental health

Marie Phelan said she had never heard of MDMA before spotting a flyer seeking veterans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.

Now, she says the psychoactive drug more commonly known as ecstasy or molly has changed the trajectory of her life.

“My experience of MDMA was that it just cracked my heart wide open,” said Phelan who enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve in 1999 and was deployed to Iraq in 2003.

“I was carrying this big heavy rucksack and I just put it down on the beach and I started unpacking it one little teeny tiny thing at a time and setting each little thing out on the waves,” Phelan said of the release from the treatment.

Phelan isn’t alone turning to alternative treatments for trauma. She is among a small group of Americans who have undergone psychedelic-assisted therapy through clinical trials studying new approaches to mental health treatment.

Now, access to those therapies is closer than ever to being expanded more broadly, bringing new options for patients and opportunities for companies — but also new scrutiny about safety and effectiveness.

In April, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at accelerating research into psychedelic drugs for mental illness. The move came as his administration issued priority review vouchers to three companies developing psychedelic or MDMA-like therapies — Compass Pathways, Usona Institute and Transcend Therapeutics — aimed at speeding up parts of the FDA review process.

The order marks a notable shift in tone from Trump’s first term, when his administration took a harder stance on cannabis and other controlled substances. This time, the White House said psychedelic compounds “show potential in clinical studies to address serious mental illnesses for patients whose conditions persist after after completing standard therapy.”

Investors quickly piled into the sector. Shares of psychedelic drug developers such as Compass Pathways and other rivals tied to the space rallied following the announcement, with Wall Street analysts arguing the order could legitimize an industry long viewed as fringe.

The science, however, remains deeply debated, raising questions about how much room the segment has to grow.