Missouri House approves psilocybin research bill

The Missouri House of Representatives this week for the first time passed legislation directing the state to conduct research into the therapeutic potential of psilocybin, the primary psychoactive compound found in magic mushrooms. The measure, House Bill 1154 by Republican State Representative Dan Houx, received overwhelming support Wednesday in the House of Representatives after winning approval from two Houses of Representatives since the proposal was introduced last month. The law must be voted on again in the House of Representatives before it can be submitted to the Missouri State Senate for consideration.

State Representative Aaron McMullen, a veteran who served in a combat unit in Afghanistan, supported the bill during the House debate on Wednesday, noting that the suicide rate among veterans is almost double the state rate among the highest in the nation.

“Substance abuse and suicide are escalating in the veteran community,” McCullen said, reading from a letter from the Grunt Style Foundation, a nonprofit organization that serves military veterans. “While psilocybin is not a panacea for all problems, it represents the first real, scientifically validated hope that we must address this crisis.”

$2 million in research grants

If the bill were passed by the entire legislature and signed into law, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) would authorize the provision of up to $2 million in grants to conduct research, subject to the allocation of funds by the legislature to require psilocybin during the final stages. life care and for the treatment of depression, substance abuse disorders and other serious mental illnesses. The state agency would collaborate on research conducted by a Missouri university or by a state-run medical center operated by the US Department of Veterans Affairs.

Research would focus on the medical use of psilocybin to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and substance abuse disorders, or as a treatment for patients in end-of-life care. Previous versions of the bill also included the psychedelics MDMA, also known as ecstasy, and ketamine, but those drugs were dropped from the measure in committee.

The law received the unanimous support of the House Veterans Committee at a hearing held earlier this month. Rep. Dave Griffith, the panel’s chair, told colleagues that while the bill was outside of his “comfort zone,” according to a report by the Missouri Independent, it still had his support.

“If you had told me five years ago that I was going to chair a committee and hear a bill where we talk about psychedelics for veterans, I would have told you, ‘You’re crazy,'” Griffith said during the hearing committee.

Ahead of Wednesday’s vote in the House of Representatives, Griffith encouraged skeptics of psychedelics policy reform to review the “extensive” research on the drugs’ therapeutic potential coming out of the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research.

“I spent hours researching at Johns Hopkins,” he said. “The data emerging from these studies is remarkable.”

Studies conducted by Johns Hopkins and other researchers have shown that psilocybin has the potential to be an effective treatment for several serious mental illnesses, including PTSD, major depressive disorders, anxiety, and substance abuse disorders. A 2020 study published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry found that psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy was a fast-acting and effective treatment for a group of 24 participants with major depressive disorders. And separate research published in 2016 found that treatment with psilocybin resulted in significant and sustained decreases in depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening cancer.

Federal agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, are currently evaluating the potential of psychedelics to treat serious mental illness. In June, the head of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration wrote to US Representative Madeleine Dean, a Pennsylvania Democrat, that FDA approval of psilocybin to treat depression was likely within the next two years.

As the nation confronts rising rates of drug use and mental health problems, “we must explore the potential of psychedelics-assisted therapies to address this crisis,” wrote Miriam E. Delphin-Rittmon, associate secretary for mental health and drug use, to Dean.

Separate legalization bill pending in Missouri

A separate bill introduced by Republican State Representative Tony Lovasco in January would legalize the therapeutic use of psilocybin for people with serious mental illnesses. Under the bill, patients could use psilocybin to treat major depression, PTSD or the mental health effects of a diagnosis of a terminal illness. Psilocybin-assisted therapy would also be available, with regulatory approval, for patients with other conditions where traditional therapies have not been effective.

Although the law does not legalize psilocybin, it offers a positive defense against criminal prosecution for patients who possess up to four grams of the drug for therapeutic use. The measure also provides similar protections for psychiatrists who administer psilocybin for therapeutic purposes.

More than 1,000 people die by suicide in Missouri each year, a rate 25% higher than the national average. And nationally, suicide rates among veterans are also elevated.

“The people who come back from the war, who need urgent care, a lot of them will be gone in three years,” Lovasco told the Missouri Independent earlier this year. “We have what about 20 veterans a day committing suicide? This is a huge loss while we wait for the government to do some paperwork.”