🚨 When Bureaucracy Blocks Healing

👋 Welcome

Hey friends!

This week’s roundup sits right at the crossroads of new science and slow-moving systems.

On the research side, we’re seeing fresh work on coma patients, multiple sclerosis, and the effect of mystical ibogaine experiences on PTSD.

On the policy and culture side, a bipartisan bill could let doctors give MDMA and psilocybin to severely ill patients, several states are lining up 2026 ballot measures, and debates keep flaring over 5-gram livestreams.

And in the middle of all that, the VA just rejected a suicide-prevention grant from a veteran-run psychedelic retreat program that has already helped keep hundreds of veterans and first-responders alive. A bold new strategy in the war on veteran suicide: refusing to work with the people actually stopping it.

Let’s dive in.

🔝 Weekly Highlights

• 🧠 Massive review shows psychedelic therapy could reshape mental health care

  A huge new analysis pulls together data from dozens of clinical trials and comes to a clear conclusion: when you combine these compounds with real therapy, you get outcomes that look very different from standard care—deeper symptom drops, longer-lasting benefits, and major shifts in quality of life. Read more.
  

• 🏛️ New bipartisan bill would let doctors give MDMA and psilocybin to seriously ill patients

  Members of Congress from both parties introduced a bill that would allow physicians to administer certain Schedule I drugs, like MDMA and psilocybin, to people with serious or life-threatening conditions under medical supervision. It’s a direct challenge to the way federal drug law usually works. Full story.

• 🐸 The strange, important world of “psychedelic frogs”

  From toad/5-MeO-DMT lore to Amazonian brews and amphibian conservation, this feature walks through how frog and toad medicine ended up at the center of so many ceremonies, and why scientists and activists are urging people to rethink how they engage with it. Learn more.
  

• ⛪ Why religion was never sober

  This feature traces the long history of sacred substances in spiritual practice and argues that drug-free religion is more of a modern invention than an ancient norm. Read more.

🧬 Quick Hits

RESEARCH 🔬

• 🎖️ Veterans who had more mystical ibogaine journeys showed the strongest PTSD relief

  In a magnesium-ibogaine study with veterans, those who reported more intense mystical-type experiences saw the biggest drops in PTSD symptoms over time. Read the study.
  

• 🧠 Virtual study models how psychedelics might help the brains of coma patients

  Using advanced brain simulations, researchers show how psychedelic-like effects could, in theory, nudge some coma-state brains toward more complex, conscious-like activity patterns. More here.
  

• 🧪 “Not all psychedelics are created equal” gets hard data

  A new paper compares several classic compounds and finds that each drives distinct network dynamics and receptor-level effects, backing up what many clinicians see in practice. Full study.
  

• 🧬 Exploring psychedelics in multiple sclerosis

  This review examines how altered-state medicines might help with multiple sclerosis—through inflammation pathways, mood and pain relief, neuroplasticity, and the psychological weight of chronic illness. Read more.

POLICY 🏛️

• 🗽 New Jersey lawmakers advance bill to legalize psilocybin therapy

  A proposed framework would create a legal pathway for psilocybin services in the state, with licensed facilitators and regulated access—another sign that state-level reform is not slowing down. Full story.
  

• 🗳️ Eight cannabis- and psychedelics-related ballot measures could land in 2026

  From decriminalization to treatment programs to medical access, multiple states are lining up citizen initiatives that could transform local landscapes in a single election night. Overview.
  

• 🌄 Missouri lawmakers pre-file multiple cannabis and psychedelic bills for 2026

  Legislators in Missouri are already setting the table for next session, with bills touching everything from research access to therapeutic use. Read more.

BUSINESS 📊

• 💼 Bringing psilocybin to market: Compass’ Steve Levine on infrastructure, access, and competition

  An in-depth interview on what it actually takes to build clinics, train therapists, work with regulators, and compete in a space where the “product” is an all-day journey, not a simple prescription. Coverage.

CULTURE 🎭

• 📺 Bryan Johnson livestreamed his 5-gram mushroom trip

  A tech multimillionaire broadcasting a heavy psilocybin experience in real time says a lot about where we are culturally—and raises real questions about spectacle, set, setting, and responsibility. Full piece.
  

• 🎙️ Logan Davidson on the fast-moving world of ibogaine in America

  Psychedelics Today sits down with Logan Davidson to unpack state-by-state strategies for ibogaine access, what’s happening behind the scenes politically, and where the next big shifts might land. Listen / read.
  

• 🎗️ What the cancer community actually needs from psychedelic care

  A thoughtful look at what people facing cancer say they really need from psychedelic-assisted care—beyond headlines and hype—including safety, continuity, and support that centers families too. Full story.
  

• 💊 Will psilocybin finally have its moment in psychiatry?

  A mainstream clinical outlet looks at the current psilocybin data, where the trials stand, what regulators are watching, and how front-line psychiatrists are preparing (or not) for the arrival of these treatments in their clinics. Read the analysis.

⚱️ Main Feature

The VA Just Fumbled a Life-Saving Lifeline

The Department of Veterans Affairs just turned down a suicide-prevention grant application from No Fallen Heroes, a veteran-led nonprofit whose entire mission is to keep veterans from ending their own lives through trauma-informed, psychedelic healing retreats abroad.

For years, their team has flown combat veterans and first responders who are right on the edge to carefully held retreats and brought them back to their families with a reason to live again. Real people have looked them in the eye and said, “You saved me.” They took that track record and applied for the VA’s Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant.

The VA answered with a form rejection: the application supposedly failed to meet “threshold requirements” under a specific section of federal code. No meaningful explanation. No engagement with outcomes. Just a bureaucratic shrug, while the VA’s own numbers still hover around 17 veterans a day dying by suicide (many organizations feel this number is much higher).

We see the other side of that decision in real time. Every single day, we get messages on social media from veterans and families asking where to go, what to read, and who to trust, because they feel the VA has given them pills, pamphlets, and waitlists instead of real options. They are doing their own research, crowdfunding their own healing, and trading information in DMs because the system that was built for them keeps telling them “no.”

Navy TOPGUN veteran and No Fallen Heroes founder Matthew “Whiz” Buckley called the grant denial exactly what it looks like: a system that loves to talk about “bold, innovative solutions” for veteran suicide while slamming the door on the people actually keeping veterans alive.

That raises a few hard questions:

• What evidence actually counts? Lived outcomes from veteran-run psychedelic programs, or only data that fits neatly inside government pipelines?

• Who gets to define “innovation”? The agencies recycling the same tools, or the vets who finally found something that works?

• How many more years of process are acceptable while families bury their loved ones?

For now, No Fallen Heroes keeps doing what it has always done: raising money, running retreats, and sending warriors home with something the VA’s bureaucracy still has not delivered: real hope. The brutal truth is that nonprofits and private donors are carrying work a government with nearly unlimited resources claims to care about more than anything.

🎁 Psychedelic Utility Belt

• 🎖️ A Veteran’s Guide to Psychedelic Medicine

  If the VA won’t fund this work, veterans will keep looking for answers on their own. This is our grounded, plain-language guide that walks veterans and families through what psychedelic medicine actually is, how people are using it for trauma, what the risks look like, and how to think about retreats and clinical programs. . Read the guide.
  

• 🧠 Psilocybin and Serotonin: How This Molecule Talks to the Brain

  Underneath the culture wars and bureaucracy, there’s a simple question: what is this compound doing inside the brain that makes it so powerful for some people? This explainer breaks down psilocybin’s relationship with the serotonin system and why that matters for mood, perception, and healing. Dive in.

👋 Signoff

The VA’s decision on No Fallen Heroes is more than just one grant rejection. It’s a snapshot of where we are right now: psychedelic science racing ahead, real people finding relief in the gaps, and institutions still clinging to the comfort of “threshold requirements” while the body count stays high.

The work will move forward, with or without official blessing, because too many lives are on the line for it to stop.

As always, thanks for reading, for staying informed, and for refusing to look away from the hard parts of this story.

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