Health Care

Psychedelic Medicine PAC seeks to elect leaders who support pro-psilocybin reforms

by Olafimihan Oshin 03/20/23 08:15 PM CDT

FILE - A vendor bags psilocybin mushrooms at a cannabis marketplace on May 24, 2019 in Los Angeles. Lawmakers throughout the United States are weighing proposals to legalize psychedelic mushrooms for people. They say alarming suicide rates and a shortage of traditional mental health practitioners has led them to consider research into alternative treatments for depression and anxiety, including so-called magic mushrooms. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File)

A political action committee (PAC) created to advocate for psychedelic medicine use in the country aims to elect leaders to support pro-psilocybin reforms.

NBC News reported Monday that the newly created Psychedelic Medicine PAC wants to elect leaders who support the therapeutic use of psychedelic substances such as psilocybin, ketamine and MDMA (ecstasy).

Psychedelic Medicine PAC executive director and co-founder Ryan Rodgers told NBC News that the group is also in the early stages of fundraising, noting that it has reached out to all levels of donors interested in funding the PAC.

The PAC also wants to secure federal funding for more education and research on psychedelic medicine use, aiming to raise $10 million in its first year as well, according to NBC News.

“We have to convince a historically stubborn audience around psychedelics that it’s not the 1960s,” Rodgers said.

“People aren’t going to stare into the sun for their eyes to blow out. People aren’t going to jump off a building,” he said. “This is about healing trauma. It’s not about recreation.”

Supporters of psychedelic medication are hoping the fight for legality will be less contentious than the won for cannabis reform.

Advocates have been pushing for the therapeutic use of psychedelic drugs, arguing that they are safer and more effective than prescription drugs, with some recent clinical studies backing advocates’ claims.

Recently, the Biden administration has explored the possibility of launching a task force that focuses on the research and study psychedelics in the hopes of the Food and Drug Administration approving the therapy use of the drugs in the future, NBC News reported.

Earlier this month, Reps. Lou Correa (D-Ca.) and Jack Bergman (R-Mich) relaunched the Congressional Psychedelics Advancing Therapies (PATH) Caucus, as a path to “address ways to alleviate the national mental health crisis through psychedelic science and research.”

The group also said it hopes to secure buy-in from both Republicans and Democrats for their latest push, NBC News noted.

“We want to ensure that what we’re advocating for doesn’t create an opposition to the issue within the halls of Congress,” Psychedelic Medicine PAC’s co-founder and executive director Melissa Lavasani told the media outlet. “We’ve seen how some of the strategies employed by the cannabis reform movement have been really divisive and that’s really delayed some of the progress. That’s a real lesson learned.”