California will spend $4.7 million researching whether psychedelic drugs like psilocybin, MDMA and ketamine can help veterans whose PTSD has not responded to standard treatment. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 113, a state budget trailer bill, on Sept.
The measure folded in years of advocacy work aimed at giving veterans access to emerging mental health therapies.
The new law absorbed language from Senate Bill 1224, known as the California Emerging Therapies Research Partnership Act, which was written to steer state resources toward federally registered clinical trials, according to Patch. Sen. Brian W. Jones, who represents Santee, announced that the budget trailer bill had been signed into law and said veterans deserve access to promising emerging therapies.
Under the bill’s text, the California Emerging Therapies Research Partnership Fund will be jointly administered by the State Department of Health Care Services and the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to CalMatters Digital Democracy. The fund is set up to issue grants to a University of California campus that would serve as an anchor institution for a federally registered emerging therapies clinical trial.
Lawmakers defined emerging therapies broadly, covering psilocybin, ibogaine, MDMA, DMT and ketamine, but only when administered inside a federally registered clinical trial rather than through general clinical use. The legislation also requires the Department of Veterans Affairs to convene a California Veteran Emerging Therapies Research Advisory Council.
As reported by KPBS, the measure grew out of roughly three years of advocacy on behalf of veterans who had not found relief through conventional mental health treatments.
Jesse Gould, founder of the Heroic Hearts Project, praised Jones, Newsom, and state senators Josh Becker, Scott Wiener and Josh Lowenthal, among others, for their roles in getting the measure across the finish line, per KPBS. Gould described the state’s $4.7 million allocation as a meaningful milestone.
Several veteran organizations backed Jones’s legislative push, according to KPBS, including the American Legion, AMVETS, Healing Breakthrough, the Military Officers Association of America and Vietnam Veterans of America. Kuta also criticized what he called a one-pill-fits-all approach to treating veterans’ mental health conditions, the outlet reported.
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