(AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
(CN) Drug reform is seeing some wins after an otherwise conservative Texas legislative session. The Republican-controlled statehouse this year passed a range of modest reform measures, proving that even in right-wing states, some politicians are moving beyond the war on drugs.
Unless Republican Governor Greg Abbott vetoes the bills and observers don’t expect he will Texas will soon expand its medical cannabis program, allowing for new conditions and raising the caps on THC, the main active component in marijuana. Lawmakers also agreed to study several federally controlled drugs including psilocybin, ketamine and MDMA and their effects on veterans with post-traumatic stress.
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AUSTIN, Texas The Texas Legislature has approved a study that will look at using psilocybin as a treatment for veterans struggling with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Psilocybin is the active ingredient in so-called magic mushrooms. This is the first of its kind study on the use of these psychedelics on veterans with PTSD.
It will be 20 years since 9/11 this September and the impact of war rarely stays overseas. We lost so far 114,000 veterans to suicide because of PTSD since 2001, said Texas Rep. Alex Dominguez, D-Brownsville.
Dominguez says the current treatments for PTSD are not doing enough. The two medications that are currently being prescribed to them are psychotropics prozac and zoloft and they are increasingly being shown to be ineffective for these veterans suffering from PTSD, so we need a fresh look. We need a big idea to solve this big problem, Dominguez said.
Some veterans who took psychedelic drugs after finding no relief from prescribed medications say it changed their lives.
Paratroopers walk as they prepare equipment and load an aircraft at Fort Bragg, N.C., last year. (Spc. Hubert Delany III/U.S. Army via AP, File)
(CN) When Andrew Marr left the military in 2015, he no longer felt like the person he was before service. A former college athlete and self-described “warrior,” he suffered from a range of new health issues, including frequent panic attacks.
Veterans Affairs doctors put him on more than a dozen medications. Marr said he saw “zero benefit.”