Nine VA Facilities to Open Research Trials for Psychedelics

On Nov. 22, 2014, 8 years after he came back from Iraq with “crippling” posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Jonathan Lubecky took his first dose of the psychedelic compound methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA). Lubecky, a Marine, Army, and National Guard veteran, described his path to MDMA therapy in in the New Horizons in Health podcast.

After 5 suicide attempts and “the hundreds of times I thought about it or stood on a bridge or had a plan,” he felt he had run out of options. Then, in a counseling session, a psychiatric intern slid a piece of paper across the table to him. It read “Google MDMA PTSD.”

Luckily for Lubecky, a space in a clinical trial opened up, in which he had 8 hours of talk therapy with specially trained therapists, combined with MDMA. “MDMA is a tool that opens up the mind, body and spirit,” he said, “so you can heal and process all those memories and traumas that are causing yourissues. It puts you in a middle place where you can talk about trauma without having panic attacks, without your body betraying you, and look at it from a different perspective.” said he added, “It’s like doing therapy while being hugged by everyone who loves you in a bathtub full of puppies licking your face.” In 2023, 9 years after that first dose, Lubecky said, “I’ve been PTSD free longer than I had it.”

And now, in 2025, the research into psychedelic therapy for veterans like Lubecky is taking another step forward according to a report by Military.com. Nine VA facilities, in the Bronx, Los Angeles, Omaha, Palo Alto, Portland (Oregon), San Diego, San Francisco, West Haven, and White River Junction, are participating in long-term studies to test the safety and clinical impact of psychedelic compounds for PTSD, treatment-resistant depression, and anxiety disorders. 

Early trials from Johns Hopkins University, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), and others found significant symptom reductions for some participants with chronic PTSD. MAPP2, the multisite phase 3 study that extended the findings of MAPP1, found that MDMA-assisted therapy significantly improved PTSD symptoms and functional impairment, compared with placebo-assisted therapy. Notably, of the 52 participants (including 16 veterans) 45 (86%) achieved a clinically meaningful benefit, and 37 (71%) no longer met criteria for PTSD by study end. Despite the promising findings, a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel recommended against approving the treatment.

In 2024 the VA issued a request for applications for proposals from its network of VA researchers and academic institutions to gather “definitive scientific evidence” on the potential efficacy and safety of psychedelic compounds, such as MDMA and psilocybin, when used in conjunction with psychotherapy. It would be the first time since the 1960s that the VA had funded research on such compounds. 

Funding proposals for such research have cycled in and out of Congress for years, but have gathered more steam in the last few years. The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act directed the US Department of Defense to establish a process for funding clinical research into the use of certain psychedelic substances to treat PTSD and traumatic brain injury. In April 2024, Representatives Lou Correa (D-CA) and Jack Bergman (R-MI), cochairs of the Psychedelics Advancing Therapies (PATH) caucus, introduced the Innovative Therapies Centers of Excellence Act of 2025, bipartisan legislation that would increase federally funded research on innovative therapies to treat veterans with PTSD, substance use disorder, and depression. It would also, if enacted, direct the VA to create ≥ 5 dedicated centers of excellence to study the therapeutic uses of psychedelic substances. The bill has also been endorsed by the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Disabled American Veterans, and the Wounded Warrior Project.

The current administration has two strong high-level supporters of psychedelics research: VA Secretary Doug Collins and US Department of Health and Human Service Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Sec. Kennedy has castigated the FDA for what he calls “aggressive suppression” of alternative and complementary treatments, including psychedelics. This, although the FDA granted breakthrough therapy status for MDMA for treating PTSD and psilocybin for treating depression in 2018 and 2019, respectively, as well a pivotal draft guidance in 2023 for the development of psychedelic drugs for psychiatric disorders, substance use disorders, and various medical conditions.

Collins, citing an “eye-opening” discussion with Kennedy, enthusiastically backs the research into psychedelics. In a May 2025 hearing that was mainly a series of testy exchanges about his proposed budget slashing, he emphasized the importance of keeping and expanding VA programs and studies on psychedelic treatments, something he has been advocating for since the beginning of his appointment. “We want to make sure we’re not closing off any outlet for a veteran who could be helped by these programs,” he said. 

Taking the intern’s advice to look into MDMA, Jonathan Lubecky said, was one of the best decisions he’d ever made. But “it’s not the MDMA that fixes you,” he said. “It’s the therapy. It’s the therapist working with you and you doing the hard work.”

On Nov. 22, 2014, 8 years after he came back from Iraq with “crippling” posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Jonathan Lubecky took his first dose of the psychedelic compound methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA). Lubecky, a Marine, Army, and National Guard veteran, described his path to MDMA therapy in in the New Horizons in Health podcast.

After 5 suicide attempts and “the hundreds of times I thought about it or stood on a bridge or had a plan,” he felt he had run out of options. Then, in a counseling session, a psychiatric intern slid a piece of paper across the table to him. It read “Google MDMA PTSD.”

Luckily for Lubecky, a space in a clinical trial opened up, in which he had 8 hours of talk therapy with specially trained therapists, combined with MDMA. “MDMA is a tool that opens up the mind, body and spirit,” he said, “so you can heal and process all those memories and traumas that are causing yourissues. It puts you in a middle place where you can talk about trauma without having panic attacks, without your body betraying you, and look at it from a different perspective.” said he added, “It’s like doing therapy while being hugged by everyone who loves you in a bathtub full of puppies licking your face.” In 2023, 9 years after that first dose, Lubecky said, “I’ve been PTSD free longer than I had it.”

And now, in 2025, the research into psychedelic therapy for veterans like Lubecky is taking another step forward according to a report by Military.com. Nine VA facilities, in the Bronx, Los Angeles, Omaha, Palo Alto, Portland (Oregon), San Diego, San Francisco, West Haven, and White River Junction, are participating in long-term studies to test the safety and clinical impact of psychedelic compounds for PTSD, treatment-resistant depression, and anxiety disorders. 

Early trials from Johns Hopkins University, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), and others found significant symptom reductions for some participants with chronic PTSD. MAPP2, the multisite phase 3 study that extended the findings of MAPP1, found that MDMA-assisted therapy significantly improved PTSD symptoms and functional impairment, compared with placebo-assisted therapy. Notably, of the 52 participants (including 16 veterans) 45 (86%) achieved a clinically meaningful benefit, and 37 (71%) no longer met criteria for PTSD by study end. Despite the promising findings, a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel recommended against approving the treatment.

In 2024 the VA issued a request for applications for proposals from its network of VA researchers and academic institutions to gather “definitive scientific evidence” on the potential efficacy and safety of psychedelic compounds, such as MDMA and psilocybin, when used in conjunction with psychotherapy. It would be the first time since the 1960s that the VA had funded research on such compounds. 

Funding proposals for such research have cycled in and out of Congress for years, but have gathered more steam in the last few years. The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act directed the US Department of Defense to establish a process for funding clinical research into the use of certain psychedelic substances to treat PTSD and traumatic brain injury. In April 2024, Representatives Lou Correa (D-CA) and Jack Bergman (R-MI), cochairs of the Psychedelics Advancing Therapies (PATH) caucus, introduced the Innovative Therapies Centers of Excellence Act of 2025, bipartisan legislation that would increase federally funded research on innovative therapies to treat veterans with PTSD, substance use disorder, and depression. It would also, if enacted, direct the VA to create ≥ 5 dedicated centers of excellence to study the therapeutic uses of psychedelic substances. The bill has also been endorsed by the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Disabled American Veterans, and the Wounded Warrior Project.

The current administration has two strong high-level supporters of psychedelics research: VA Secretary Doug Collins and US Department of Health and Human Service Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Sec. Kennedy has castigated the FDA for what he calls “aggressive suppression” of alternative and complementary treatments, including psychedelics. This, although the FDA granted breakthrough therapy status for MDMA for treating PTSD and psilocybin for treating depression in 2018 and 2019, respectively, as well a pivotal draft guidance in 2023 for the development of psychedelic drugs for psychiatric disorders, substance use disorders, and various medical conditions.

Collins, citing an “eye-opening” discussion with Kennedy, enthusiastically backs the research into psychedelics. In a May 2025 hearing that was mainly a series of testy exchanges about his proposed budget slashing, he emphasized the importance of keeping and expanding VA programs and studies on psychedelic treatments, something he has been advocating for since the beginning of his appointment. “We want to make sure we’re not closing off any outlet for a veteran who could be helped by these programs,” he said. 

Taking the intern’s advice to look into MDMA, Jonathan Lubecky said, was one of the best decisions he’d ever made. But “it’s not the MDMA that fixes you,” he said. “It’s the therapy. It’s the therapist working with you and you doing the hard work.”

On Nov. 22, 2014, 8 years after he came back from Iraq with “crippling” posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Jonathan Lubecky took his first dose of the psychedelic compound methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA). Lubecky, a Marine, Army, and National Guard veteran, described his path to MDMA therapy in in the New Horizons in Health podcast.

After 5 suicide attempts and “the hundreds of times I thought about it or stood on a bridge or had a plan,” he felt he had run out of options. Then, in a counseling session, a psychiatric intern slid a piece of paper across the table to him. It read “Google MDMA PTSD.”

Luckily for Lubecky, a space in a clinical trial opened up, in which he had 8 hours of talk therapy with specially trained therapists, combined with MDMA. “MDMA is a tool that opens up the mind, body and spirit,” he said, “so you can heal and process all those memories and traumas that are causing yourissues. It puts you in a middle place where you can talk about trauma without having panic attacks, without your body betraying you, and look at it from a different perspective.” said he added, “It’s like doing therapy while being hugged by everyone who loves you in a bathtub full of puppies licking your face.” In 2023, 9 years after that first dose, Lubecky said, “I’ve been PTSD free longer than I had it.”

And now, in 2025, the research into psychedelic therapy for veterans like Lubecky is taking another step forward according to a report by Military.com. Nine VA facilities, in the Bronx, Los Angeles, Omaha, Palo Alto, Portland (Oregon), San Diego, San Francisco, West Haven, and White River Junction, are participating in long-term studies to test the safety and clinical impact of psychedelic compounds for PTSD, treatment-resistant depression, and anxiety disorders. 

Early trials from Johns Hopkins University, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), and others found significant symptom reductions for some participants with chronic PTSD. MAPP2, the multisite phase 3 study that extended the findings of MAPP1, found that MDMA-assisted therapy significantly improved PTSD symptoms and functional impairment, compared with placebo-assisted therapy. Notably, of the 52 participants (including 16 veterans) 45 (86%) achieved a clinically meaningful benefit, and 37 (71%) no longer met criteria for PTSD by study end. Despite the promising findings, a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel recommended against approving the treatment.

In 2024 the VA issued a request for applications for proposals from its network of VA researchers and academic institutions to gather “definitive scientific evidence” on the potential efficacy and safety of psychedelic compounds, such as MDMA and psilocybin, when used in conjunction with psychotherapy. It would be the first time since the 1960s that the VA had funded research on such compounds. 

Funding proposals for such research have cycled in and out of Congress for years, but have gathered more steam in the last few years. The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act directed the US Department of Defense to establish a process for funding clinical research into the use of certain psychedelic substances to treat PTSD and traumatic brain injury. In April 2024, Representatives Lou Correa (D-CA) and Jack Bergman (R-MI), cochairs of the Psychedelics Advancing Therapies (PATH) caucus, introduced the Innovative Therapies Centers of Excellence Act of 2025, bipartisan legislation that would increase federally funded research on innovative therapies to treat veterans with PTSD, substance use disorder, and depression. It would also, if enacted, direct the VA to create ≥ 5 dedicated centers of excellence to study the therapeutic uses of psychedelic substances. The bill has also been endorsed by the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Disabled American Veterans, and the Wounded Warrior Project.

The current administration has two strong high-level supporters of psychedelics research: VA Secretary Doug Collins and US Department of Health and Human Service Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Sec. Kennedy has castigated the FDA for what he calls “aggressive suppression” of alternative and complementary treatments, including psychedelics. This, although the FDA granted breakthrough therapy status for MDMA for treating PTSD and psilocybin for treating depression in 2018 and 2019, respectively, as well a pivotal draft guidance in 2023 for the development of psychedelic drugs for psychiatric disorders, substance use disorders, and various medical conditions.

Collins, citing an “eye-opening” discussion with Kennedy, enthusiastically backs the research into psychedelics. In a May 2025 hearing that was mainly a series of testy exchanges about his proposed budget slashing, he emphasized the importance of keeping and expanding VA programs and studies on psychedelic treatments, something he has been advocating for since the beginning of his appointment. “We want to make sure we’re not closing off any outlet for a veteran who could be helped by these programs,” he said. 

Taking the intern’s advice to look into MDMA, Jonathan Lubecky said, was one of the best decisions he’d ever made. But “it’s not the MDMA that fixes you,” he said. “It’s the therapy. It’s the therapist working with you and you doing the hard work.”