Therapy Reform Gets Boost From Conservatives

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry told attendees at a psychedelics conference this week that he was committed to loosening federal restrictions on a prohibited psychoactive substance that has shown promise in treating mental health conditions like opioid addiction.

During a keynote address Thursday morning, the Republican former secretary of energy and onetime Lone Star State executive charted his journey from staunch anti-drug conservative to self-described "proponent of ibogaine," a powerful root-derived psychedelic and Schedule I controlled substance.

Perry said his conversion to psychedelic advocacy came about through reading the research data on ibogaine and meeting with individuals who had benefited from ibogaine treatment.

The former governor's appearance at the psychedelics summit came roughly one week after his successor as Texas governor, Republican Greg Abbott, signed into law a bill pledging $50 million in state funds to research ibogaine's potential uses in treating opioid use disorder, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

In his current capacity as chair of the board at a new educational nonprofit, Americans for Ibogaine, Perry pledged to continue pursuing policies at the federal level to destigmatize and potentially broaden access to psychedelics that have shown promise in treating a host of mental disorders but are currently illegal under federal law.

Perry said he planned to meet with U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who has expressed a willingness to investigate psychedelics' therapeutic potential — and with members of Congress to change the narrative around nature-based psychedelics.

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