Why is Trump wooing psychedelics? It’s really about Iran

On Saturday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order expediting federal review of psychedelic drugs for treating mental illness, a class of drugs including LSD, psilocybin “magic” mushrooms and others that are highly illegal. Despite being banned, a wealth of research suggests they can treat intractable mental health problems, which has attracted significant investment from the biotech industry.

Those who have been working in the space are split, with some seeing the order as little more than a public relations stunt amid the president’s floundering Iran war, which he launched in late February alongside Israel. Others see the attention as a meaningful change in the government’s approach to drug policy, at least when it comes to psychedelic medical treatments.

At the signing on Saturday, Trump was surrounded by the typical coterie of administration officials, such as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime proponent of psychedelics. But one guest stood out from the crowd: podcaster Joe Rogan, who buoyed Trump in the 2024 election and has long supported right-wing causes and figures, but also has a long, documented interest in psychedelics.

The initial reporting, from Axios, suggested that the order from Trump was an olive branch to Rogan, who has recently become critical of the administration over the conduct of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as the president’s war against Iran. Trump’s treatment of Rogan also stands out from his attitude toward other right-wing podcasters, like Candace Owens and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, whom Trump has attacked relentlessly for criticizing his foreign adventurism.

Rogan later revealed on his podcast that he had been texting with the president prior to the event, saying that he brought up the issue to Trump himself.

“The text message came back: ‘Sounds great. Do you want FDA approval? Let’s do it,” Rogan said. A rubber stamp from the president is not how drug development works, of course, but rather through a rigorous (and expensive) federal approval process. In fact, the Food and Drug Administration has evaluated psychedelic adjacent drugs, approving esketamine in 2019 and rejecting MDMA in 2024.

Nonetheless, psychedelics are a hot topic lately. At congressional hearings Tuesday, Kennedy was asked about the administration’s pivot on psychedelics by Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., who said that he was concerned that the move was simply a way to “appease Joe Rogan’s ire” over the Iran war.

“I want safety and efficacy to be the standards by which psychedelics are approved, not the president’s attempt to shore up support from his base for a disastrous war in Iran,” Achincloss said.

However, the pomp and circumstance of the signing, as well as the limited material consequences of the order has left those working for psychedelic reform divided on how to think about it. This has only been heightened by the fact that Trump has signed other popular executive orders at times when he was flagging in the polls. Earlier this year, for example, Trump signed an executive order ordering the fast-tracking of cannabis rescheduling while he was in the midst of the Epstein files scandal, but those in the cannabis industry said it had little real-world consequences in terms of changing the federal government’s cannabis policy.

Dr. Mason Marks, the lead at Harvard’s Project on Psychedelics Law and Regulation, told Salon that while he welcomed the attention paid to the issue by the government, in practical terms, the executive order may only shave a few months off the approval of new psychedelic drugs for medicinal use.

“There is a section in there about requiring the DEA to reschedule a psychedelic quickly if it’s FDA-approved, but the DEA already has to do that in 90 days if the FDA approves a Schedule I drug,” Marks said. “The DEA doesn’t have a choice. They have to reschedule it in three months. So that’s already pretty fast.”

Under the rules set forth by the order, this process would be expedited to 60 days, Marks explained. The order also directs an expedited schedule for FDA approval of new drug applications. Normally, this process takes around six to 10 months, and under the expedited process, the FDA is supposed to respond within three months. Altogether, the order could expedite the approval of a new drug by as many as four months.

“You’re talking about a matter of months when it’s taken, like, five years or 10 years to do the research,” Marks said. “On the whole, it might have some effect, but the individual pieces of it, I don’t think, really do all that much.”

The order also had some $50 million attached to it for funding for research on psychedelic therapy, though Marks noted that it’s not yet clear where that money will be going. It’s conveniently the exact amount of money Texas was attempting to solicit from a private partner for research on ibogaine in the state, an Indigenous drug from Africa that is being used to treat traumatic brain injury and PTSD.

Marks said that while the attention from the White House on the issue of psychedelic therapy was unprecedented, and likely positive for the future of research, there wasn’t all that much else in the order that might have material consequences for getting new drugs and therapies approved.

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Rhonda DeSantis, the founder and CEO of Psylutions, a psilocybin mushroom company in Colorado, where the drug is legal, told Salon that she sees the shift in optics from the government as a big deal. The support for psychedelic therapy from the White House, especially this Republican White House, has thrust the topic into the mainstream, she said.

“I think the administration has recognized that and said, ‘Hey, this can’t be a partisan issue. This is something that is legitimate medicine,’” DeSantis said. “There has been quite a bit of clinical data that has shown the positive outcomes from psychedelic use, and I think [Kennedy] has really dug into that and has presented it to the administration and to the public in a manner where there’s no legitimate reason to withhold it anymore.”

DeSantis didn’t, however, think that the future of psychedelic therapy lives or dies with the fortunes of Kennedy or his Make America Healthy Again movement. Rather, she said that she believes that Trump outflanking recent Democratic administrations on this issue means that both parties will be supporting psychedelic therapies going forward.

She added that the situation with psychedelic therapies is distinct from cannabis rescheduling because there is not the same organized resistance from anti-cannabis activists or Big Pharma and alcohol lobbyists, who see cannabis as a direct competitor. While there is some anti-psychedelic therapy activity, DeSantis said, the opposition isn’t as stiff because this is limited to a medical context.

“I’m very excited about the executive order, and I think it will have really positive outcomes for all of us,” DeSantis said.

The post Why is Trump wooing psychedelics? It’s really about Iran appeared first on Salon.com.