President signs an executive order accelerating FDA review of psychedelic drugs for serious mental illness.

Hon, every once in a while, a real thing happens.

On Saturday, the President signed an executive order directing the Food and Drug Administration to accelerate review of psychedelic compounds that have already been designated as breakthrough therapy drugs for the treatment of serious mental illness. The order also directs the agency, working with the Drug Enforcement Administration, to set up a pathway for eligible patients to access investigational compounds, including ibogaine, under right-to-try.

The order names a Stanford study of thirty special-operations veterans with traumatic brain injuries who underwent ibogaine treatment, and reported a roughly 80 to 90 percent reduction in symptoms of depression and anxiety within a month. The order obligates fifty million dollars from ARPA-H, matched by state investments, to expand the research base.

I have refilled coffee cups for veterans who, after the third tour, came home and could not sleep through the night. The honest version of their experience is that the standard SSRIs did not, for them, fix it. The honest version is that several of them, on their own dime, have flown to clinics in Mexico to try compounds the United States classifies as Schedule I. The honest version is that several of them, when they came back, were better. The honest version is also that several of them are dead.

The country has been bad at this conversation. The country has, for forty years, treated the compounds in question as moral failures rather than as molecules. The current administration has, on this single file, chosen to treat them as molecules.

By April 24, the FDA Commissioner had issued three priority vouchers, to Compass Pathways’ psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression, Usona Institute’s psilocybin for major depressive disorder, and Transcend Therapeutics’ methylone for PTSD. This is, by the standards of the agency, lightning.

You can disagree with this White House on most things and acknowledge, in this one place, that the file moved, the science is in the room, and the veterans are not, on this issue, an afterthought.

That ought to count.