Tripping Over Trump: Will the New Administration Embrace Psychedelic Exceptionalism or ‘Just Say No’?

Words by Josh Hardman.

As the psychedelics field licks its wounds after a string of defeats in recent months, many believe they have found a silver lining in the form of an incoming Trump administration. But while there are several prominent psychedelics advocates in the President-elect’s orbit, it’s not yet clear whether, or how, the new administration would catalyse psychedelic drug development or policy reform. Here, we take a deep dive…

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As New Approach PAC’s singular psychedelics initiative failed in Massachusetts, and its Oregon program was dealt a further blow as cities and counties extended the list of local opt-outs, psychedelic advocates were left searching for a win in last week’s elections.

That ‘win’ comes in the form of the Trump administration, apparently; at least according to some in the psychedelics field. (When I began writing about psychedelics, I really never thought I would type this sentence!)

It’s no secret that at least a few of Trump’s posse are interested in psychedelics. In fact, certain Trump associates have made very prominent comments on the matter…

Elon Musk – Psychedelic-experienced Trump donor and hype man

According to WSJ, Musk has dabbled in LSD, MDMA, mushrooms and—very prominently—ketamine.
“I’ve talked to many more people who were helped by psychedelics & ketamine than SSRIs & amphetamines”, he tweeted back in 2022. Later that year, he responded to a tweet from Cybin CEO Doug Drysdale “Psychedelics and MDMA can make a real difference to mental health, especially for extreme depression and PTSD. We should take this seriously.”
So, might Elon talk Trump into focusing on psychedelics? Perhaps. But, others might wonder why he would waste energy on lobbying for psychedelics when he could spend that time talking Trump into lowering taxes and boosting government contracts for his own interests (via money he might carve out in his role as Department of Government Efficiency co-leader).

JD Vance – Thiel’s Vice President-elect project and self-identified psychedelic noob

Vance reportedly owes some chunk of his success to venture capitalist and big political donor Peter Thiel, who also happens to be an investor in some psychedelics companies.
But, Thiel’s interest doesn’t appear to have rubbed off on Vance: When the Vice President-elect appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience last month, Rogan told him that his veteran friends with PTSD had been helped with psychedelics. “This is a problem I know nothing about”, Vance said, adding that it was “literally the first time I’ve heard about this.”

RFK Jr. – Anti-pharma MAHA marshal

Perhaps the most significant person in Trump’s orbit when it comes to psychedelics is his former Presidential campaign opponent turned key supporter RFK Jr., who hopes to launch his Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) initiative via an official position in Trump’s administration next year.
He has pricked the ears of the psychedelics field by proclaiming on Twitter last month that “FDA’s war on public health is about to end.” That ‘war’, he claims, “includes its aggressive suppression of psychedelics”, along with other things such as raw milk, sunshine, and nutraceuticals. Psychedelics talking heads, companies (like Enthea) and their executives (like PharmaTher’s CEO Fabio Chianelli, who also finds time to trash talk his competitors) jumped in to praise RFK Jr. for his comments. Drysdale, the Cybin CEO and active tweeter, described the situation as “Definitely interesting times”.
Last weekend, RFK Jr. again tweeted about psychedelics, reposting a Joe Rogan clip and writing: “Yes, @JoeRogan veterans are the most deserving of benefiting from psychedelic therapy.”
Back in January, during his presidential campaign, RFK Jr. said on Twitter that ibogaine’s Schedule I status is “absurd”, and said that he would “deschedule ibogaine and all psychedelic medicines.”
Trump has, apparently, promised RFK Jr. ‘control’ of HHS and the Department of Agriculture, which would give him sweeping powers over those agencies and their sub-agencies, which include the CDC, FDA, NIH, and others.
But, questions of whether RFK Jr. will now be set aside by Trump, who isn’t exactly known for keeping his promises, are now swirling. The Telegraph has reported that the Trump campaign is ‘quietly distancing’ itself from him, and even before the elections the transition team’s co-chair Howard Lutnick told CNN that RFK Jr. would not head up the HHS in the case of a Trump win.
But prediction markets like Polymarket, which correctly guessed the outcome of the elections while pollsters were torn, are confident that RFK Jr. will have some role in the new government. While relatively thinly traded, Polymarket puts RFK Jr.’s chances of having a role in the Trump administration at 92%, though only 15% of traders predict him becoming the HHS Secretary, with Ben Carson the current favourite. (Carson promised to “intensify” the War on Drugs when running for president back in 2015.)
Update: On Thursday evening, Trump announced RFK Jr. as his HHS Secretary pick.

The MAHA Coalition

RFK Jr.’s MAHA is crowdsourcing nominees for Trump’s administration, which people can vote for via a dedicated website.
On the health front, RFK Jr. himself is leading by some margin, with chiropractor and ‘frequency/functional medicine’ influencer Charlie Fagenholz in second position, anti-vaxx activist and conspiracy theorist Sherri Tenpenny in third, and COVID-19 misinformation and hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin peddler Peter McCullough coming in fourth. Fifth place goes to Leigh Erin Connealy, who has been reprimanded by the Medical Board of California for failing to properly investigate her patients’ symptoms that could be due to cancers, and received a letter from the FDA in 2020 over her marketing of unapproved and misbranded products related to COVID-19 (Connealy has at least two companies that sell supplements and functional medicine services). The remainder of the list is a mix of anti-vaxxers, wellness influencers, and at least one January 6th insurrectionist (Simone Gold).
A powerful sister-brother duo in the MAHA world are Calley and Casey Means, who might prove influential in Trump’s administration.
- Calley Means supposedly left his food lobbyist job after a shroom trip showed him the light and led him to go on a proto-MAHA podcast tour.
- He also claimed that Psymposia and New York Magazine’s ‘Cover Story’ series was a “pharma-sponsored hit job”. He has repeated an unfounded claim that Psymposia is a “pharma-funded front group”, which he began saying back in March 2022. (I challenged him on that claim, but he did not address it directly.)
- He also said that he had “sold all of my 401k and bought two stocks: $CMPS and $ATAI”, and he has written a lengthy pro-psychedelic blog post. Sounding similar to RFK Jr., he tweeted back in spring 2023 that “It is evil that the medical community has covered up and stigmatized psychedelics.” He said this summer that “FDA corruption” had blocked MDMA’s FDA approval, suggesting it was because “it’s not a recurring treatment” and is thus “against pharma business model.” (It’s easy to see why these arguments have broad appeal… you would just as easily hear them in a left-wing forum.)
- Means is also an advisor to the Center for MINDS, a non-profit psychedelics and consciousness research organisation.
- His sister, Casey Means, is also interested in psychedelics, having written briefly about emerging research into whether psychedelics might have an impact on metabolic health and insulin secretion. She also discusses her use of psilocybin and suggests her readers consider it, in Good Energy, the book she co-authored with her brother. That book has apparently been shared extensively within Trump’s inner circle.
- Casey could score a role at the FDA, it’s rumoured.

What Could Trump Do for Psychedelics?

If these influences get their way when it comes to psychedelics, what might Trump actually do?

Well, I spent the past week speaking to the more optimistic folks from around the field to ask them, quite simply, how they think the incoming administration might ‘help’ psychedelics, in real terms.

When pushed, two broad avenues for positive influence arise:

Catalysing Medicalisation: The Trump administration could—directly or indirectly—streamline the marketing authorisation of psychedelics.
Catalysing Legalisation or Rescheduling: The incoming administration could enact policy reforms, such as rescheduling, to reduce penalties associated with the use of psychedelics.

Catalysing Medicalisation

Of the two broad categories of potential change, many of the people I spoke to believed the former is the most likely area that the Trump administration could make an impact on the field.

One popular theory is that the incoming administration could influence the FDA to reconsider its rejection of Lykos Therapeutics’ MDMA New Drug Application (NDA). It’s unclear whether this theory is borne of reason or plain hope, but the company’s focus on its potential in veterans might have placed it in the most favourable position to benefit from any inbound political will.

The case of Spravato might be indicative here, too…

Trump Pushed VA to Buy “Truckloads” of Spravato

While Trump himself has been quiet on psychedelics, he demonstrated a ‘personal interest’ in fast-tracking Johnson & Johnson’s esketamine nasal spray product (Spravato) for use within the VA during his first term.

Trump’s enthusiasm was so ardent that the agency “shoved aside usual protocols, even though experts inside and outside the government [had] serious concerns”, according to The Guardian, which also reported that VA staffers “were told by a senior official to drop everything in March [2019] and accelerate the drug’s availability because the president had expressed enthusiasm for the drug, Spravato, as a possible treatment for depressed veterans.”

ProPublica and The Center for Public Integrity led on the reporting of the matter, which led to a House Democrats investigation into potential outside influence at the VA in the push to have Spravato added to its formulary despite skepticism from its own Medical Advisory Panel (the ‘formulary committee’). That built on earlier reporting that detailed a trio of those in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago set were having an outside influence on VA policy. J&J had also been partnering with the VA on a suicide awareness campaign while developing Spravato, which included the company inviting then-VA Secretary David Shulkin to ring the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Veterans Day back in 2017.

Nothing seems to have come of that House Democrats investigation or the associated reporting, which may imply a green light for similar efforts by today’s drug developers, even as questions remain around its cost/risk-benefit profile, especially given that it’s much more expensive than IV ketamine.

Anyhow, might this example inform what we might expect to happen, if anything, with psychedelics?

Well, Trump showed little substantive knowledge of the drug itself back then, which might suggest that the lack of scientific knowledge among his present posse won’t be a blocker to garnering a special interest from Trump and co. next year. (“I guess it’s a form of a stimulant”, he said of esketamine, the S-enantiomer of the dissociative anaesthetic ketamine… a downer, not an upper.) And, given that it seems it was Trump’s Mar-a-Lago pals that set his sights on Spravato, might we expect him to take a similar interest in psychedelics, given an increasingly psychedelic MAGA milieu?

But, crucially, Trump didn’t get Spravato approved: FDA did so in March 2019 on its own accord. He simply instructed VA to get it online… kicking them into overdrive to have it rolled out. Within days of its approval, according to reporting, Trump urged VA officials to buy “truckloads” of the new product, with a J&J contract signed within 48 hours and a statement issued just two weeks after approval. (According to STAT, however, only 15 veterans had been treated with Spravato by mid-December 2019.)

So, hoping for Trump or one of his appointees to put his thumb on the FDA approval scales is more than he did in the case of Spravato. But, given that FDA Advisory Committee (AdComm) members had expressed some concern¹ about Spravato and that this didn’t temper Trump’s bullishness on the roll-out of the drug at the VA, could we see a similar attitude with MDMA?

But it’s also unclear whether a lack of political will within the VA would be a blocker to MDMA’s uptake: It already has prominent internal champions. Perhaps the most obvious of those is VA Under Secretary of Health Shereef Elnahal, who has repeatedly supported efforts to get psychedelic research underway in the organisation and to prepare for a potential roll-out.

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So, it is at least plausible that Lykos’ MDMA for PTSD could face a smoother route to resubmission, or even some alternative route altogether, under a Trump administration.

But what about the broader crop of psychedelic drug developers? Compass Pathways, for example, is in the throes of its Phase 3 program. It’s hard to imagine a Trump administration calling off the remainder of those trials, for example.

So why, then, are certain psychedelic stocks rallying (above and beyond the broader market rise) since the election? Shares in atai are up over 30%, MindMed is up a similar amount, and the small MDMA supplier Pharmala is up nearly 50%. Compass, meanwhile, is up less than 5% and remains down on the month following its news of a delay to its first Phase 3 readout and lay-offs.

Broader FDA Reform

Perhaps, aside from streamlining specific drug development programs and their post-approval roll-outs, a Trump administration could streamline drug approvals more broadly.

Some insiders have been saying this prominently: atai founder and prominent investor Christian Angermayer, for example, thinks that the new administration will implement “a general deregulation strategy” that will be good for biotechs (and Bitcoin).

Having spoken to several people close to the Trump administration, or at least close to some of his major donors, a key theme I have heard is an interest in narrowing the FDA’s focus to safety, and dropping the whole efficacy portion altogether.

It’s not clear what that would look like in practice, especially given the fact that safety (risk) is often appreciated in comparison to a drug’s potential benefit (efficacy), but advocates of that move tell me that it would be up to the market to determine a product’s utility. This, they hope, would lead to very streamlined drug approvals, with Phase 1 studies being the only real in-human testing.

Such reforms would tie in with the Trump administration’s broader plans to palm off government responsibilities to the market, which the President-elect began at the VA in his first term. (The nonpartisan Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute worries that a second Trump term “would decimate veterans’ healthcare and benefits”, finishing off “the VA demolition job that was launched in the first one.”²)

All of this makes one wonder where RFK Jr. would fit into the picture, if at all. The former presidential candidate has a ferociously anti-pharma, anti-patent streak, and believes the FDA is so corrupted by corporate interests that it should have its powers largely stripped (though, if I were an exec at a large pharma company, that might be quite an attractive proposition!). It feels odd that he might be okay with allowing the market to determine the efficacy of drugs, in that case.

It’s also hard to imagine RFK Jr., should he figure into the picture at all, taking a positive view of many of the psychedelic drug developers, which—despite developing molecules that have apparently been ‘suppressed’ by the FDA—are increasingly taking on a pharmaceutical sheen.

Indeed, in that October tweet, he suggested that the very reason for FDA’s suppression of things like orange sunshine and regular sunshine is because they “can’t be patented by Pharma.” But psychedelics companies have patented psychedelics quite successfully and prominently, as we have covered extensively over the years.

So what would RFK Jr. make of all this? And what does he think of Spravato? In his dream world, which he appears to be increasingly living in, might he prefer to see generic psychedelics approved for medical uses, à la Doblin’s original plan?

Even if RFK Jr. doesn’t figure into the picture in a meaningful way, this will be a tough balancing act for the incoming administration.

Catalysing Legalisation or Rescheduling

While most of the people I have spoken with expect the Trump admin.’s potentially pro-psychedelics agenda to be limited to the ‘medical’ side of things—whether through direct influence on or support for individual development programs or through broader deregulation—others are hopeful that the new government could take a more sweeping approach, such as rescheduling psychedelics.

Microdosing evangelist and Third Wave founder Paul Austin, for example, hopes for “deregulated access to psychedelics”, which he thinks “would catalyze massive shifts in mental health.” The Trip Report’s Zach Haigney, meanwhile, urged the incoming admin. to “Reclassify Psychedelics to Schedule III or IV”, telling Trump and RFK Jr.: “You have a golden opportunity to rewrite history and this should be a first step.” (The Trip Report is owned by Beckley Waves, a venture studio investing in and building psychedelics companies, some of which would benefit from such a move.)

Similarly, ice hockey player turned psychedelic entrepreneur Daniel Carcillo asked RFK Jr. to “Reschedule mushrooms and get rid of 280E in the IRS tax code so centers in Oregon and Colorado can bank and operate like any other business”. “Abolish the corruption and let state wide programs with natural medicines flourish”, he continued. Such moves would also be a boon for Carcillo, who has an interest in an Oregon service centre and is presumably jaded by the FDA process, given his psychedelic drug development company Wesana Health appeared to have made little progress before going dark.

But there are many reasons to be skeptical of the chances of either a federal move like rescheduling or other (perhaps Cole Memo-type) reforms that would provide a more permissive environment for state-level psychedelic programs or legal changes.

America ‘Just Said No’ to Drugs?

Perhaps the most obvious reason is that Trump is decidedly conservative and reactionary, despite the occasionally libertarian sheen of those around him.

And that conservatism, unsurprisingly, extends to his drug policy positions. Even if we assume that he won’t read from the Project 2025 hymn sheet, Trump has personally endorsed draconian drug policies including calling for the death penalty for those who sell drugs as recently as November 2022.

It’s likely that he would also feel vindicated in such anti-drug stances right now, given that marijuana ballot initiatives largely failed in the most recent elections, as did Massachusetts’ psychedelics-focused Question 4.

In just one example of how tied-up Trump’s fixers are in prohibition, the successful No on 4 campaign in Massachusetts had its finances overseen by its treasurer, Charles Gantt of the political consultancy firm Red Curve. (Gantt, and that firm, are very close with the President-elect; so close that they’re embroiled in a scandal over allegedly obscuring how Trump’s legal bills are being paid.) And Mass.’s No campaign funder, Smart Approaches to Marijuana, is victory-lapping its win and the apparent ‘just say no’ revival among voters across the country.

It might not be surprising, then, that Trump’s early Cabinet picks include people that are similarly hawkish on drugs, even though they likely won’t have direct influence on drug policy. Trump has chosen Marco Rubio, who has repeatedly opposed marijuana legalisation, as Secretary of State, and Kristi Noem, who was earlier this year barred from entering tribal lands in her home state of South Dakota after making comments connecting tribal leaders to international drug cartels, as Homeland Security Secretary.

But, Trump’s Attorney General pick, Matt Gaetz, has shown at least some interest in psychedelics (though, his confirmation could be complicated, given the House Ethics investigation into his conduct). He testified to the House Rules Committee asking it to pass his amendment to the NDAA to have the Department of Defense study psilocybin and MDMA, and later complained that the “gerontocracy” were preventing more psychedelics-focused bills from passing.

It’s unclear, then, whether rescheduling or other substantive psychedelics-related policy reform would be compatible with Trump’s ‘tough on crime’ brand, or the nation’s apparent apathy for further drug policy reforms. If Gaetz is confirmed in his position, it may be positive for marijuana rescheduling and, potentially, psychedelics’ prospects of rescheduling. But other figures, like the newly-elected Senate majority leader John Thune, are staunchly opposed to marijuana legalisation, let alone psychedelics.

If I’m correct in my assessment of Trump’s admin. most likely continuing the war on drugs, then any psychedelic-related policy reforms or leniency would presumably rely on an extreme framing of psychedelic exceptionalism that positions them as a distinct class of drugs.

That’s not entirely out of the picture, and is a strategy that has been used successfully in the pursuit (and attainment) of major policy reforms across the country. But, convincing a right-wing government to make such a major drug policy reform at a moment of apparent skepticism among the populace would certainly be pushing psychedelic exceptionalism to new limits.

Pα: We can analyse all day, but in reality many people believe that much of the Trump administration’s agenda will depend on where the President-elect’s whims take him; or, where the whims of those that find their way into (and remain in) his inner circle take them.

If the Heritage Foundation, with its Project 2025 agenda, continues to bend the ear of Trump, it’s difficult to see how meaningful drug policy reforms might be on the table, though medicalisation-related measures could remain a possibility. It’s likely that the increasingly influential America First Policy Institute would also prescribe a hard-line on drugs, as well as sweeping reforms to the FDA.

Or, as allegedly seen in the case of Spravato, it could come down to a few personal relationships with psychedelics advocates that encourage Trump to take a personal interest in the class of drugs; and such relationships are clearly not lacking in an increasingly MAGA psychedelic scene.

It’s unlikely the Trump admin. will have a shortage of power to act on its whims. Aside from electoral success that includes control of the House, another factor in their favour is the overturning of Chevron deference³, which affords a Republican-aligned legislature much more room to interfere with the work of agencies like the VA, DEA and FDA, which—at the least—could slow down their work through legal challenges and a potential inability to carry out rulemaking. As such, Chevron’s overturning tips the balance of power away from federal bureaucrats and back to judges, which could allow for more conservative influence over said agencies.

But aside from who will bend Trump’s ear most successfully, and whether Chevron affords a conservative administration and legislature greater power to meddle in the workings of federal agencies like the FDA and DEA, there are two fundamental challenges for the integration of a psychedelic policy agenda into the Trump administration:

Catalysing psychedelic medicalisation largely depends on whether the MAHA clique’s anti-pharma stance can accommodate psychedelic pharma. (But, if not, more sweeping reforms to the FDA might also allow a more streamlined path to market.)
Legalisation or rescheduling depends on just how successfully veteran-anchored psychedelic exceptionalism can shelter the class of drugs from the new administration’s presumably hawkish approach to drug policy, and the apparent apathy for further drug policy reform among Americans.

While many of the people I spoke to were optimistic (indeed, I deliberately chose to speak with optimists), some were worried that psychedelics might get bundled up with what they described as ‘snake oils’ (no, not seed oils!) that they believe are sometimes pushed by the MAHA crew.

But even still, at least one of those individuals who was concerned about the association of psychedelics with lesser-tested interventions was hopeful that the market would separate the wheat from the chaff. Might it be up to the invisible hand to decide whether it will be nutty pudding and/or psychedelics that is best for improving our health, then?

What will play out over the coming weeks, months and years is anyone’s guess, and it’s worth remembering that the things said (by all sides) in the immediate prelude to, and aftermath of, an election are often promises that don’t come true. But one thing is sure: I will be covering each psychedelics-related move as it happens. ∎

Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee (PDAC) member Jess Fiedorowicz, for example, abstained on the Spravato AdComm vote, and voted against MDMA at its own AdComm.
Trump is thought to be planning to privatise the agency, which he moved toward doing in his first term.
Devolved federal government agencies used to generally have the power to interpret the legal authority afforded to them by Congress, which was established in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.. However, this set-up, known as ‘Chevron deference’, was overturned earlier this year.