For retired Maj. Gen. Glenn Curtis, the former top official at the ถถา๕h National Guard, it was the headaches and cloudy thinking caused by a neck injury, traumatic brain injuries and PTSD. And for his son Nicholas Curtis, it was the vertigo, light sensitivity and memory problems stemming from two head injuries.
That suffering โ and their hope for an elusive cure โ spurred the father and son to travel to Mexico together in early 2025 to take the psychedelic drug ibogaine after the younger Curtis heard about it on a podcast with Joe Rogan.
Both men said their symptoms disappeared after the treatment and havenโt returned since.
Inspired by the transformation, the father-son duo to help military veterans access ibogaine, psilocybin and ayahuasca to treat mental health conditions. But the drugs are largely illegal, and opportunities for clinical trials using them have been scarce.
Now, as a movement to increase access to psychedelic-assisted therapy has gained steam across the country, Louisiana is joining a growing list of states working to expand the use of the drugs to treat addiction, PTSD and other conditions. State lawmakers this spring unanimously approved a measure to cultivate research into psychedelics and support clinical trials.
A growing body of research shows that psychedelics can help address problems like trauma, addiction and depression, which can lead to suicide, and thatโs especially relevant for struggling veterans, said Sen. Patrick McMath, R-Covington, who , now Act 956.
โI believe it will save lives,โ McMath said of the new law. โShame on us as legislators in this state if we donโt do everything that we can to create the regulatory pathways to safely administer this type of therapy.โ
Psychedelics for mental health treatment
Psychedelics like ibogaine, psilocybin and MDMA are illegal under federal law, and are Schedule I drugs, the Drug Enforcement Agencyโs most restrictive classification.
While they canโt be prescribed in standard medical treatment, scientists with a special Schedule I license can study the drugs in research trials.
Some of those studies have produced โa really remarkable effect,โ said Kevin Murnane, a professor of pharmacology, toxicology and neuroscience and a professor of psychiatry and behavioral medicine at LSU Health-Shreveport.
โMany times the outcomes are really, really profound,โ he said.
For example, people with conditions like treatment-resistant depression, substance use disorder or PTSD experienced remission for months or in some cases years after taking psychedelics with the right preparation and in a monitored clinical setting, he said.
At the same time, the field of psychedelic medicine is still in its early stages, he said, and most experts view the findings thus far as โpromising but not definitiveโ due to the limited scientific research and clinical trial data thatโs available.
โMore research needs to happen,โ he said, โbut the potential is immense.โ
Murnane cautioned that each psychedelic carries its own risks and potential harms. For example, MDMA could affect the supply of blood to the heart, while ibogaine can make patients extremely physically ill and impact the heartโs rhythms, and some drugs carry psychiatric risks like manic states or suicidality if used improperly, he said.
Psychedelics can also put people in a vulnerable, compromised mental state, he said, and he does not recommend taking them independently outside of a clinical setting.
Murnane is the principal investigator for two ongoing clinical trials with psychedelics, one studying psilocybin to reduce relapse in methamphetamine addiction and another studying a psilocybin-like compound to treat adjustment disorder triggered by a traumatic or major life change like a terminal diagnosis.
He said he hopes to expand the research to include ibogaine and MDMA at the clinical trials office at LSU Health-Shreveport, which built out a psychedelic dosing room with input from experts.
Murnane, who gave advice on some aspects of Act 956, said the law will position ถถา๕h to be a national leader in psychedelic research.
What does the legislation do?
A new Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Initiative will be housed in the Office of Behavioral Health at the state Health Department and led by Dr. Vanessa de la Cruz, the office's chief medical officer.
The program is tasked with identifying academic health centers conducting clinical trials of psychedelic-assisted therapy, helping identify potential study participants, and securing funding for the studies, including from Louisianโs $600 million pot of money from a 2021 over the opioid epidemic.
Academic health centers in ถถา๕h can now partner with drug manufacturers to develop clinical trials for psychedelic medications like ibogaine, psilocybin and MDMA to treat addiction and mental health conditions.
The measure became law this month without a signature or veto from Gov. Jeff Landry.
A national movement
Louisianโs effort is part of a broader movement across the country to expand access to psychedelic drugs and to medicalize ibogaine for mental health treatment.
Blue states like Oregon, Colorado and California have passed laws expanding access to psychedelics for healthcare, but several red states including Texas, Tennessee and others are also following suit, according to data on state-level legislation compiled by the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics.
And in April, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at speeding up research and development for psychedelics.
โPsychedelic drugs, including ibogaine compounds, show potential in clinical studies to address serious mental illnesses for patients whose conditions persist after completing standard therapy,โ the order says.
Murnane said both the ถถา๕h legislation and the presidentโs executive order provide a valuable counterweight to the โcultural baggageโ psychedelics have.
โItโs helpful when youโre conducting research trials or trying to advance them as medicine to be able to say that very responsible, ethical and credible people believe this is worth researching and studying,โ he said.
At a news conference this week celebrating the new law, McMath said he first heard about ibogaine a few years ago talking to military veterans about PTSD, and then he learned more about it from an interview on the Joe Rogan podcast with W. Bryan Hubbard, an ibogaine treatment advocate who has been gaining a national profile in recent months.
โWe should probably start a Joe Rogan caucus,โ McMath said jokingly. โThereโs been a decent amount of legislation that has come from that show.โ
Hubbard, a lawyer and former executive director of the Kentucky Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission, joined McMath at the news conference at a veterans wellness center in New Orleans.
โWe are in an existential struggle for the survival of this country,โ Hubbard said. He pointed to things like the opioid epidemic, ongoing military conflicts since Sept. 11, and the high suicide rate amongst veterans.
Hubbard works with former Texas governor Rick Perry running Americans for Ibogaine, a national nonprofit group promoting medical and therapeutic use of the drug.
โHaving recognized that the heart of trauma and addiction is profound spiritual affliction, mighty Texas has committed $100 million to achieve the moonshot of our time, the medicalization of ibogaine within the United States in order to serve and exalt the primacy of the human soul,โ he said.
He said he is working to change state and national policy on ibogaine because โwe have a profoundly broken mental, behavioral and addiction health treatment system.โ
Hubbard and Rogan were at the White House and stood together behind Trump the day he signed the recent executive order on psychedelic research.
Rogan said he sent Trump a text message about ibogaineโs potential to treat opioid addiction, and the president responded that he would be supportive of FDA approval.
Trump said he got on board with the idea after asking U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Mehment Oz, who runs the Medicare and Medicaid programs, about the psychedelic.
The next week, the FDA for the first time authorized a clinical study of an ibogaine derivative to treat alcohol use disorder.
The FDA also said it was fast-tracking studies by three companies studying psilocybin and another MDMA-like drug to treat depression and PTSD.