President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order on 18 April 2026 directing federal agencies to fast-track the review, funding and potential reclassification of psychedelic drugs including psilocybin and ibogaine as treatments for serious mental illness.
The order, titled 'Accelerating Medical Treatments for Serious Mental Illness,' instructs the Food and Drug Administration to issue National Priority Vouchers to qualifying psychedelic compounds already granted Breakthrough Therapy designation, allowing their review to proceed in a matter of weeks rather than years.
It also allocates at least £39 million or $50 million through the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health to support state-level psychedelic research programmes. The announcement, delivered in the Oval Office alongside Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., CMS administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, veteran and author Marcus Luttrell andpodcast host Joe Rogan, drew laughter when the president turned to the room and said, 'Can I have some, please?'
The order operates across five principal directives. The FDA Commissioner must provideCommissioner's National Priority Vouchersto psychedelics that have already cleared Breakthrough Therapy designation, a status the FDA reserves for drugs showing preliminary clinical evidence of substantial improvement over existing therapies.
Separately, the FDA and the Drug Enforcement Administration are directed to create an access pathway for eligible patients under theRight to Try Act (21 U.S.C. 360bbb-0a), which allows terminally ill patients to access investigational treatments that have not yet received full FDA approval. The order specifies that this pathway must cover ibogaine compounds and requires the DEA to issue Schedule I handling authorisations to treating physicians and researchers where necessary.
The Attorney General is further instructed to initiate rescheduling reviews for any psychedelic product that has successfully completed Phase 3 clinical trials and received FDA approval, so that reclassification under the Controlled Substances Act can proceed 'as quickly as practicable.'
Psilocybin, the active compound in so-called magic mushrooms, and ibogaine, derived from the West African iboga plant, both remain classified as Schedule I substances under federal law, meaning theDEA considers themto have no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.
The order does not reschedule either compound. It initiates a federal review process and clears bureaucratic pathways while the underlying clinical evidence is gathered and assessed.
Theorder's preamblegrounds the policy in a documented public health crisis. It cites figures showing that more than 14 million American adults live with a serious mental illness, defined as a diagnosable disorder that substantially interferes with daily functioning, and that about 8 million are already on prescription medication. National suicide rates rose 37% between 2000 and 2018. While the administration claims a 5% reduction during Trump's first term, it acknowledges that rates rebounded to their highest recorded level in 2022.
Veterans bear a disproportionate share of the burden. The order states that more than 6,000 veteran suicides occur in the United States each year, a rate more than twice that of the non-veteran adult population.
Source: International Business Times UK
