NIH Director Praises Psychedelics' Potential As Therapeutic Treatment

In a Senate budget hearing this week, the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US (Francis Collins) expressed praised research findings on the therapeutic potential of psychedelics such as psilocybin and MDMA.

“I think as we’ve learned more about how the brain works we began to realize that these are potential tools for research purposes and might be clinically beneficial”, Collins said, referring to the recent trials such as MAPS' Phase 3 MDMA for PTSD trial.

The NIH is the country’s main health agency responsible for public health research. As its director, Collins stands as the highest ranking health officer in the federal government.

He told the committee hearing that he has been in conversations with the National Institute of Drug Abuse and the National Institute of Mental Health about whether now it is time to design the next generation of clinical trials to see where these provide benefits - going beyond depression. He admitted that the "very limited opportunity for access creates an issue here".

“What we really need is to moderate the schedule 1 limitation,” Collins said, proposing the creation of a “Schedule 1R” category that would create a different pathway for researchers.

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