When the political scientist Rick Doblin founded an organization in the 1980s aimed at securing federal approval for the medical use of MDMA, also known as Ecstasy, his vision was nothing short of utopian. He thought the psychedelic drug, which can enhance feelings of love and social connection, would heal global trauma and usher in world peace. The psychedelic movement at that time was a grass-roots effort by hippies, students and bohemians.
Now his organization’s corporate spinoff, Lykos Therapeutics, may soon be acquired by Antonio Gracias, a billionaire private equity investor and close friend of the richest man in the world, Elon Musk. Mr. Gracias, who previously served on the board of Tesla and SpaceX, is working in Mr. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, where, given the job of overhauling Social Security, he has pushed unsubstantiated claims about immigrants voting illegally.
The planned acquisition of Lykos is an example of how tightly entwined a once left-wing psychedelic movement has become with the Trump administration and the tech right. Peter Thiel, who has close ties with many top-level Trump officials, is a major investor in the psychedelic company Atai Life Sciences. Mr. Musk has talked about how he uses a small amount of prescription ketamine “once every other week or something like that.” And Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said he’s open to decriminalizing or even legalizing the drugs in some form, citing his son’s experience using ayahuasca to process grief from the death of his mother, Mary Kennedy. Stocks in companies working on psychedelic treatments rose after Mr. Kennedy’s confirmation as health secretary.
The Food and Drug Administration turned down Lykos’s application for MDMA therapy in 2024, citing the need for better data. But the pro-psychedelic lobby is hopeful that Mr. Kennedy’s Health and Human Services will appoint a psychedelic czar and trim the red tape in the F.D.A.’s approval process for psychedelic treatments. Some are dreaming even bigger, aiming for the rapid legalization of these drugs.
For some psychonauts, the rightward shift of psychedelic politics is bewildering. Even if the federal government decides to support psychedelic medicine, will there be enough people working at Health and Human Services or Veterans Affairs (where there is hope to use psychedelics to treat post-traumatic stress disorder) to roll it out safely and effectively? Too close a marriage between MAGA and the psychedelic movement could politicize psychedelic science. Mr. Musk’s erratic behavior has given ketamine a bad name.
I worry that the psychedelic enthusiasts of Silicon Valley will apply their “move fast and break things” philosophy to mind-altering drugs, approving them too quickly and without adequate protections for Americans. Psychedelics are very promising as a mental health treatment, but they are also incredibly powerful drugs that carry serious risks — something I know firsthand.
When I was 18, I had a bad trip with LSD that left me traumatized. All through university and for a couple of years afterward, I struggled with panic attacks, dissociation, social anxiety and a belief that I had ruined my life before it had properly begun. I had to figure out for myself how to get better. More than 25 years later, as the head of a nonprofit that researches psychedelic safety, I get emails every week from people terrified they’ve permanently damaged themselves after a negative trip. A hardened Marine who served in two wars and was injured in one said the years of crippling anxiety after a psychedelic retreat were easily the worst suffering of his life.
The United States has already seen the risks of the underregulated expansion of psychedelics in the ketamine industry, which has boomed from around 50 clinics to over 1,000 in the past decade. Telehealth companies use targeted ads to promise miraculous benefits from injectable doses that they will deliver to your door. Many of them fail to adequately screen patients or ensure that they have mental health support. Last year the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration at the time warned of clinics overprescribing or illegally supplying the drug — a pattern that she said played a role in the actor Matthew Perry’s tragic death.
It’s about to get harder to track the public health impact of the ketamine boom. Mr. Kennedy fired the 17-person team working on the National Survey on Drug Use and Health in April, which previously reported an 80 percent rise in recreational use of ketamine from 2015 to 2019. Some research suggests long-term ketamine use can lead to cognitive problems, bladder problems, dependency and dissociation; you might even start thinking you’re in a simulation, as Mr. Musk suggests.
Many members of the millionaire and billionaire class have found meaning, healing and joy in psychedelics, and they want to bring that to the masses. (Take any of the big American dynasties — the Gettys, Rockefellers, Mellons, Kochs, Hearsts — and you’ll probably find a member who has given money to psychedelic causes.) They may dismiss concerns about safety as sensationalism or drug war propaganda, but their resources provide them access to months of therapy and time off work to recover after a bad trip. Most Americans don’t have that luxury.
A better public safety net for psychedelics is achievable. We need more research and better information on harms, as well as clinics and groups to help people struggling with severe adverse effects. These drugs should follow the same careful approval process as any other treatment. Policymakers should take seriously the probability that F.D.A. approval of psychedelics will lead to more widespread consumption in unregulated settings, which is why safety measures must consider all the ways these drugs may be used. The public needs to know that psychedelics aren’t magic pills. They don’t automatically heal you.
Psychedelics could play a leading role in mental health care. But if approval is rushed without necessary guardrails in place, there will be a backlash, and these drugs will be relegated to the fringes of alternative health. That would be a tragic missed opportunity for patients.
