It Took a Text From Joe Rogan. Now Psychedelics Are a Federal Research Priority.

President Trump signed an executive order on April 18 directing the FDA to fast-track review of psychedelic therapies and committing $50 million to ibogaine research. The psychedelics community is cautiously optimistic, and watching closely.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Saturday directing federal agencies to accelerate research into psychedelic therapies and committing $50 million through HHS to support state-backed psychedelic research, with ibogaine as the primary immediate beneficiary. The signing took place in the Oval Office on April 18, with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., podcast host Joe Rogan, veterans advocate Marcus Luttrell and Representative Morgan Luttrell among those present.

“I’m pleased to announce historic reforms to dramatically accelerate access to new medical research and treatments based on psychedelic drugs,” Trump said at the signing, as reported by The New York Times. Of ibogaine specifically, Trump added: “I never heard anything about it in the past. It was almost like, taboo. It’s not taboo anymore.”

FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary said decisions on the drugs could come as soon as this summer, telling those assembled that drugs aligned with national priorities could get approved “in weeks, not a year or a year-plus,” according to CNN.

How Joe Rogan helped make this happen

Rogan, who backed Trump in 2024 and has devoted significant airtime to advocates for ibogaine’s use in treating veterans, described the moment from the Oval Office. He said he had sent Trump information about ibogaine, and that the response came back almost immediately: “Sounds great, do you want FDA approval? Let’s do it.” Rogan called it “literally that quick.”

What the order actually does

The executive order names ibogaine specifically and directs the FDA to prioritize eligible psychedelic therapies that have received Breakthrough Therapy designation, while broader compounds including psilocybin, LSD and MDMA may benefit under the order’s broader review framework. According to Reuters, federal officials said the reforms would pave the way for reclassification of substances following successful clinical trials. The federal funding will most immediately benefit Texas, which had already committed $50 million of its own to ibogaine research but recently failed to secure matching funds from a private drug developer.

Veterans at the center of the push

The signing was flanked by veterans advocates, including Marcus Luttrell and his brother, Representative Morgan Luttrell, a Texas Republican. Representative Michael McCaul joined Luttrell in vowing to pursue legislation to make the changes more durable. “We will continue working in Congress to build on the president’s leadership and expand access to this life-saving treatment,” the two said in a joint statement. “Our veterans answered the call for us. Now we must deliver for them.”

Ibogaine has drawn particular attention from veteran groups because of its reported efficacy in treating PTSD and opioid use disorder. Mexico currently has ibogaine treatment centers that have long attracted U.S. veterans who cannot legally access the treatment at home.

MAPS: opportunity and responsibility

The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which has been conducting ibogaine research for over a decade, welcomed the executive order while stressing that speed cannot come at the expense of rigor.

“As federal agencies are directed to reduce barriers to clinical research and accelerate drug approvals for psychedelic substances, it is critical that these efforts remain grounded in transparent, evidence-based processes,” said Ismail L. Ali, J.D., co-executive director of MAPS. He noted that MAPS will publish a publicly available Investigator’s Brochure for ibogaine this summer, providing a comprehensive literature review of the compound’s known clinical and non-clinical data.

Ali also raised a critical concern about supply: because iboga is a limited natural resource, mass production of ibogaine carries real risks for the people, traditions and land where iboga is grown in Gabon. “As it is incorporated into medicine, we call for alignment with global public health principles, including cultural respect, sustainability, and community engagement,” he said.

“People living with addiction and trauma deserve our urgent attention, not just incremental change. We have both an opportunity and a responsibility.”

Betty Aldworth, Co-Executive Director, MAPS

Betty Aldworth, MAPS’s other co-executive director, was blunt about the stakes. “Today, people desperate for healing are traveling abroad or self-medicating with impure substances and little support,” she said, adding that acceleration of approval timelines must be paired with regulated access, provider training and robust insurance coverage. “When we ignore that evidence, we put our communities and future at risk.”

The clinical perspective

Tom Feegel, CEO of Beond, a clinical neurohealth center focused on ibogaine-assisted protocols, called the order a historic inflection point, though he emphasized that execution is everything.

“The opportunity now is not hype — it is execution: rigorous science, disciplined safety standards, physician-led protocols, and real-world outcomes data.”

Tom Feegel, CEO, Beond

“Ibogaine is not a conventional intervention,” Feegel said. “It works at the level of brain chemistry and neural signaling, opening a window of neuroplasticity where meaningful change becomes possible when guided by the right advanced clinical frameworks.” He stressed that ibogaine must be delivered in medically supervised environments with cardiac monitoring, careful screening and therapeutic integration, not as a standalone treatment.

The science and the caution

Ibogaine remains a Schedule I controlled substance in the United States. Early research, including a Stanford observational study on 30 special forces veterans, showed significant reductions in PTSD, depression and anxiety symptoms. But the compound carries real cardiac risks, including abnormal heart rhythms, and several deaths have been associated with its ingestion, though causation is not always definitively established.

Psilocybin and LSD have both received FDA breakthrough therapy designation in recent years. MDMA was declined by the FDA in 2024 for PTSD treatment, pending additional clinical trials after concerns were raised about the integrity of prior studies.

Scientists have expressed concern that the administration’s emphasis on speed could lead to bypassing rigorous research benchmarks and put patients at risk, according to CNN’s reporting.

Part of a broader pattern, with an important caveat

This is Trump’s second psychedelic-adjacent executive order in four months. In December 2025, he directed the attorney general to move forward with reclassifying cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III. The DEA has still not completed that reclassification. Executive orders direct agency action but do not guarantee it.

Whether this order moves faster than the cannabis rescheduling directive will depend entirely on follow-through from the FDA and DEA. The FDA Commissioner’s promise of decisions “in weeks” will be watched closely by researchers, veterans, operators and the broader psychedelics community.

The bipartisan resonance of Saturday’s signing is real and notable. Representative Lou Correa, a California Democrat, applauded the action publicly. Rogan, who has been openly critical of some of Trump’s other policies, was present and credited. That unusual alignment may give the order more political durability than it would otherwise have.