How MAGA learned to love psychedelics

Politico

12 hours ago

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Driving the Day
THE PSYCHEDELICS FLIP-FLOP — Historically, the Republican Party hasn't jumped to embrace cutting-edge medical treatments that involve drugs commonly used recreationally (see: 'Marijuana'). But things are shifting when it comes to psychedelics for PTSD — and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could be just the person the movement has been looking for, POLITICO's Erin Schumaker reports.
Driven by a desire to help ex-servicemembers with post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental illnesses, GOP lawmakers led a failed campaign last year to persuade the Biden administration to approve psychedelic drugs.
The campaign ended when, in August, the FDA rejected drugmaker Lykos Therapeutics' application to offer ecstasy, alongside therapy, as a PTSD treatment. FDA advisers expressed concern that the company's researchers were more evangelists than scientists and determined they'd failed to prove the regimen was either safe or effective. The advisers also raised concerns that ecstasy had the potential to damage the heart and liver.
But Kennedy has been known to embrace medical treatments that fall well outside of the mainstream.
A friend in MAHA: A longtime believer in psychedelics' potential to help people with illnesses like PTSD and depression, Kennedy is ramping up government-run clinical studies and telling the disappointed lawmakers that doctors would soon be prescribing the drugs, even though Biden officials found no evidence of their effectiveness.
'These are people who badly need some kind of therapy; nothing else is working for them,' Kennedy said at a House hearing Tuesday. 'This line of therapeutics has tremendous advantage if given in a clinical setting. And we are working very hard to make sure that that happens within 12 months.'
The shifting political landscape: The GOP's embrace of psychedelics is another — and perhaps one of the more jarring — examples of cultural transformation that President Donald Trump's populist politics have brought.
Veterans seeking cures for mental illnesses associated with combat, combined with the Kennedy-backed Make America Healthy Again movement's enthusiasm for natural medicine, have strengthened a libertarian strain on the right in favor of drug experimentation. Meanwhile, the left, where hippies are giving way to technocrats, has become more skeptical.
Key context: Earlier this month, Texas' Republican governor, Greg Abbott, signed a law to put $50 million into clinical trials of the psychedelic ibogaine as a mental health treatment.
Like ecstasy, ibogaine also poses heart risks. The Drug Enforcement Administration lists both drugs on its schedule of drugs with no currently acceptable medical use and a high risk of abuse.
That would have once been enough to make law-and-order Republicans say no. But top Kennedy adviser Calley Means says not anymore.
'Ten years ago, nobody expected the Republican Party as the party of healthy food, as the party of exercise, as the party of questioning pharmaceutical companies, as the party of psychedelic research — but that's where we are,' Means said.
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In the courts
OBAMACARE SCOTUS RULING FALLOUT — On Friday, the Supreme Court upheld a provision in the Affordable Care Act that mandates insurance companies cover preventive health services at no cost to patients, POLITICO's Lauren Gardner reports. The ruling hinged on the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force — an independent advisory panel of experts who recommend what preventive care should be covered free of charge.
The court, in a 6-3 decision, ruled that the USPSTF is constitutional because the HHS secretary has the power to appoint and fire members and to reject their screening and drug recommendations. Some public health experts, including Kathy Hempstead, senior policy officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, expressed concern about how Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may use that power.
The lawsuit was brought by individuals and businesses with religious objections to covering preexposure prophylaxis drugs, which are key to preventing HIV.
Key context: Kennedy's recent decision to remove all members of the CDC's vaccine advisory panel and reconstitute it with individuals skeptical of immunizations illustrates the extent of that authority.
'It's sort of the end of one threat but the beginning of another,' Hempstead said.
Kennedy said that the decision was needed to root out 'persistent conflicts of interest.'
It's unclear whether Kennedy plans to alter the task force's membership, too. But federal law stipulates that policy decisions stemming from both groups' advice be based on science, said Andrew Pincus, a Supreme Court attorney at the law firm Mayer Brown who represented public health groups that filed a brief supporting the government's defense in the case.
'To the extent that they don't rest on science, I think they would be subject to being set aside by the courts,' he said.
PHARMA WATCH
WHO's WEIGHT-LOSS DRUG WARNING — The World Health Organization is cautioning health care professionals and regulatory authorities that weight-loss and diabetes drugs containing semaglutide have caused rare cases of sudden blindness, POLITICO's Carmen Paun reports.
The WHO pointed to a recommendation earlier this month from the European Medicines Agency — the EU's drug regulator — which found that taking Novo Nordisk's Ozempic, Rybelsus and Wegovy could cause a condition known as nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy in up to 1 in 10,000 users.
The condition is typically characterized by sudden, painless vision loss in one eye that's generally irreversible and for which no effective treatment is available, the WHO said.
What's next: The WHO's drug-safety advisory committee evaluated the evidence and concluded that the risk-management plan for semaglutide drugs should be revised to include sudden blindness as a potential risk.
Novo Nordisk didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
In Congress
TILLIS WON'T RUN FOR REELECTION — Sen. Thom Tillis — who voted 'no' on advancing the GOP's massive domestic policy bill partly because of concerns over Medicaid cuts — will not run for reelection, the North Carolina Republican announced Sunday.
The move comes after President Donald Trump said he would explore backing a primary challenger to the senator. The bill contains many of Trump's campaign promises.
Key context: While Trump's Truth Social attacks might have accelerated Tillis' announcement — Trump called him, among other things, 'a talker and complainer, NOT A DOER!' — he had already shown ambivalence about his ability to win reelection while squarely backing Trump's agenda, POLITICO's Jordain Carney reports.
He privately warned colleagues in a Senate Republican lunch last week that the megabill's approach to Medicaid would cause him to lose his race next year, remarks first reported by POLITICO. GOP colleagues chalked up Tillis' private warnings to his fears of a tough general election in the swing state, where popular former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper could be a formidable candidate.
Names in the News
Anindita 'Annie' Saha will take on the lead policy role on artificial intelligence at the Food and Drug Administration's drug division, according to an internal email reviewed by POLITICO. Saha is a 20-year agency veteran who will also keep her role as associate director for strategic initiatives at the Digital Health Center of Excellence within the FDA's device division. Saha replaces Tala Fakhouri, who is leaving the FDA.
WHAT WE'RE READING
The Wall Street Journal's Dominique Mosbergen reports on researchers' hopes that preemptive treatment for early-onset Altzhimer's could slow or even halt a disease that has no cure.