Carte Blanche: Psychedelic treatment for PTSD at long last
Marek Piwnicki
After years of lobbying by both veterans and health professionals, President Trump signed an executive order to remove barriers and expand the research of psychedelic treatments for mental health. At the signing of the order, Joe Rogan, a long-time champion of the substances and their therapeutic benefits, stood behind the President as he signed the order allowing such practices to soon become mainstream. Continuing with their push to “Make America Healthy Again”, the Trump Administration is allowing for more non-traditional and long, heavily regulated, or downright outlawed treatments to be tested, and patients, who have long suffered, access to something that could be life-altering. For the first time in living memory, the government is, at least in some small part, getting out of the way of its citizens to allow them to take their health into their own hands. The long-term results of which can only lead to new and less costly treatments for a veteran community suffering from intense neurological injuries, and the average person who faces increasingly expensive and over-regulated medicines and medical services, and is barred from trying treatments or alternatives labeled dangerous by big pharma and government bureaucrats.
If there is one gain that is a true victory for the nation, it is that the government is returning the right to choose without acting like an all-knowing parent, if only in this small matter with incredible potential. There are those who say a President should not legislate by the stroke of a pen and that only Congress has the right to enact such laws and policies. If Congress would stop stripping the people of the right to choose in the name of fairness and safety, then such actions by any President would not be necessary. There are far too many executive orders and presidents, regardless of party, who sign those orders that never benefit the people or make their lives easier. However, this is one of the few and fleeting cases where that is not true.
During the late 1960s into the 1970s, the counterculture of free love, hippie antiwar protesters, and a vibrant drug culture deeply disturbed the establishment and mom and pop America. President Richard Nixon began the war on drugs, and the nation hasn’t been the same since. The goal was that only licensed medical doctors could, with the consent of the FDA, could prescribe anything labeled as a narcotic. From the late 1990s to the mid-2000s, the nation was ravaged by an opioid epidemic in the form of OxyContin, which was prescribed as a miracle drug of its time. It was approved for sale and distribution by government doctors and private professionals, all of whom had the state's licenses and approval. What followed next was the addiction and death of millions of Americans who suffered from chronic pain and mental illness, which assured the addiction and, in far too many cases, death. Despite this, the response from both the government and doctors wasn’t to fundamentally reexamine the process by which pharmaceuticals are approved or examined.
If the COVID-19 Pandemic taught the nation anything, it’s that they still pick winners and losers when it comes to treatments. Something Joe Rogan knows all too well from his public disagreements with virologists and media personalities over alternative treatments for COVID, including ivermectin instead of an FDA-approved and heavily government-enforced vaccine that still draws controversy from the public at large and the medical community. In both instances, the government's preferred policy was to approve matters under its control and oversight, leading to millions of Americans being disenfranchised and denied opportunities to seek alternatives, often outside the law. The results of which are still working their way through the already overburdened and dubious legal system.
Ponce de Leon had spent a significant portion of his life searching for the fountain of youth. It was said to contain magical and healing properties that could grant a cure to any ailment, and best of all, make one young and immortal. While science has granted the human race more than a few miracles, the fountain of youth evades it, for now. However, this doesn’t mean there aren’t natural, non-pharmaceutical treatments that can provide comfort or cure complex ailments if given the chance. The Trump Administration has taken an unprecedented step in the modern age to allow such things to happen. It has thrown down the gauntlet for Congress to pick up. If the government, regardless of which branch, believes it exists to serve the common good and to care for the general welfare of the people who elect and appoint them, then now is the time to prove it. People must be allowed to take risks with their health and decide for themselves which therapies and medications they want access to. The war on drugs has not had any positive impact on the culture of drug use or the lives of the citizens who are regularly imprisoned for non-violent crimes. The intentions espoused by every administration do not solve any problems; they guarantee that they will be solved, despite the new ones they create. The time for change is one long overdue and eagerly awaited by many who want an alternative to expensive, addictive, or deadly prescriptions that have not improved the health of those who receive them. It is the right of every American to choose what they want to do with their lives and their health, and if it is as important to the nation's leaders as they claim, then it should be a simple task to return to the people their rights and carry out their wishes.