Trump Directs Federal Agencies to Accelerate Psychedelic Drug Research for Mental Health Treatments

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on April 18, 2026, directing federal agencies to accelerate research into psychedelic drugs as treatments for mental illness. D.C. The order directs priority review vouchers to Compass Pathways, Usona Institute, and Transcend Therapeutics.

The vouchers are intended to shorten segments of the FDA review process for the companies' psychedelic or MDMA-like therapies. " The directive marks a change from the administration's earlier approach to cannabis and other controlled substances.

U.S. Army Reserve in 1999 and deployed to Iraq in 2003, participated in MDMA-assisted therapy trials for post-traumatic stress disorder. "My experience of MDMA was that it just cracked my heart wide open," Phelan said. " Late-stage trials run by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies found that roughly 71 percent of participants with severe PTSD no longer met diagnostic criteria for the disorder after MDMA-assisted therapy.

The FDA rejected an earlier MDMA-assisted therapy application in 2024, citing study design concerns and the need for additional data. Historically, psilocybin research has focused on depression, MDMA-assisted therapy on PTSD, and LSD on anxiety. Ibogaine, a psychoactive compound derived from a West African shrub, has been examined for addiction and traumatic brain injury.

Brandon Weiss, a researcher at the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said the compounds differ. "One of the things that's important to recognize is these are all very different drugs," Weiss stated. com reporting.