Veterans Leading The Way
1. “The Veterans Fighting To Legalize Psychedelics.”
The New York Times’ national podcast, The Daily, dedicated an entire episode to the work that veterans like Juliana Mercer, a marine veteran who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, are doing to increase access to psychedelic medicine across the country. Mercer powerfully describes her own struggles with her mental health while deployed—and the relief that psilocybin provided her:
“Shortly after I got [to Afghanistan], I started hallucinating that some of my wounded Marines were out there. And I would see them walking towards me… I would get really scared and run towards them and ask them…why are you here? And then I’d get closer and realize that it wasn’t them, that I was hallucinating. And so I realized really quickly that something was wrong… I started talk therapy [to treat my depression] and that helped a little… [but] it just wasn’t moving the needle for me …”
On how psilocybin helped her to heal:
“20 years of that collected trauma and grief and pain just completely left my body. And I woke up, and looked in the mirror, and didn’t recognize who I saw. I was connected to — reconnected to my loving, joyful, authentic self. And it was somebody that I hadn’t seen in a really long time.”
2. U.S Air Force Vet: “Veterans Suffering From PTSD May Benefit From Psilocybin.”
In an op-ed for the Salt Lake Tribune, retired U.S. Air Force pilot Eric Swartz— who served five tours in Iraq and Afghanistan—writes about his personal experience with mental health challenges stemming from a loss in his sense of identity after a serious illness forced him into medical retirement. Here’s Swartz in his own words:
“Back in civilian life, I felt deeply depressed and disconnected, even from my wonderful family … After being immersed in the conflict of war for so long, I felt like the world I inhabited wasn’t safe and that I constantly needed to be on guard. For a while I put on a brave face and carried on, thinking I could fix my mindset myself. But I couldn’t. I sought professional help and was diagnosed with PTSD and generalized anxiety disorder. I participated in counseling and was prescribed [an antidepressant]. It helped a little, but I still felt like I had put on a band-aid without treating the underlying infection. Worse still, I saw diminishing returns over time. My perceptive wife knew I was struggling and suggested I try psilocybin ... The experience was like hitting a reset button. The gut-wrenching knot of anxiety was gone. The very idea that I had been so anxious now seemed ludicrous … It was like my brain had been reprogrammed to think in healthy patterns, rather than the dysfunctional ruts I’d become accustomed to.”
3. New Arizona Bill Aims To Fund Psilocybin Research To Help Veterans.
The Arizona legislature is considering a bill that would put $30 million in grants toward developing clinical trials of psilocybin to treat more than a dozen different conditions, including major depression, substance use disorder, and PTSD. According to a report by A.J. Herrington in Forbes, the clinical trials will focus on “using veterans, first responders, frontline health care workers and persons from underserved communities as the research subjects.” The House Military Affairs and Public Safety Committee unanimously approved the bill last week. It’s too early to forecast odds of passage this year, but, as Herrington explains, the early success in traditionally conservative Arizona “underscores the growing popularity and bipartisan support of psychedelics policy reform measures.”
