San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Psychedelics next in PTSD treatment
Like many veterans, Tim Jensen struggled after America’s final days in Afghanistan.
He’d served a combat tour in Iraq with the Marines in 2004, battled post-traumatic stress, recovered and was doing well before August 2021. He never deployed to Afghanistan, but the bloody and chaotic departure from Kabul revived old traumas for the 44-year-old husband and father.
Soon, he was anxious, stressed and ambushed by intrusive thoughts. Experiences he’d thought he’d dealt with years before reinvaded his consciousness.
“A lot of these things were just so suppressed — things that happened to me in Iraq— that the fall of Afghanistan brought them to the surface.”
Then came a trip to Arizona where he experienced psilocybin — the psychoactive compound in “magic mushrooms”— in a medical setting. The therapy helped him gather his thoughts and faculties. It also opened the door to other psychedelics such as Ayahuasca, a drink brewed from Amazonian plants.
“That really helped in so many different aspects of my life, that I had to sit down and think to myself, why is this illegal? Why are we sitting here beating our faces against the wall trying to figure out modalities to bring to the veteran community to keep them from committing suicide?”
His journey and those questions gave Jensen another mission: Expand awareness and help others benefit from psychedelic medicines and therapy.
Advocating for veterans isn’t new for the co-owner of Grunt Style, the San Antonio-based patriotic apparel brand. He’s also the president of the Grunt Style foundation, a non-profit that supports the military and veteran communities.
For the last four years, Jensen has worked with Rosie and Le Roy Torres, the Robstown couple who created BurnPits360, in the push for legislation to expand VA medical care and support for toxicexposed veterans. They won that fight last year when President Joe Biden signed the Sgt.
1st Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics act, that expanded VA services for more than 3.5 million vets.
Now, he’s partnered with the Veteran Mental Health and Leadership Coalition — a cohort of vet groups, researchers, clinicians and providers — led by retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Martin Steele, to grow access, funding and research for psychedelic therapies.
They’re advocating for expanded state-based and VA “pilot programs for MDMAand psilocybin-assisted therapy for Veterans struggling with PTSD, depression, suicidality and related complex co-morbidities,” funding to train providers and streamline the process for “research of Schedule I Controlled Substances, such as ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT.”
They want vets who need these treatments to be able to get them legally and safely in America. Right now, a web of non-profits can help vets travel outside the U.S. for psychedelic therapies, but the process can be slow, expensive and possibly too late for a vet in crisis.
That’s one reason the coalition also wants to open immediate access to MDMA- or psilocybin-assisted therapies through the federal “Right to Try Clarification Act” that New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker introduced in July. The bill, cosponsored by Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, would offer immediate help for those at “at serious risk of suicide and have exhausted all other options.”
Beyond the federal efforts, the coalition is lobbying in 16 states, including several that already have bills in committee.
Last week, Jensen and his colleagues traveled to Austin to meet with Texas lawmakers and discuss a “consortium bill” that has “language that speaks to advance research, develop infrastructure and safety and education.”
It’s the next step in a conversation that needs to move faster.
The proposal will build on House Bill 1802 that was enrolled in June and called for a study of psychedelic treatments for PTSD. Jensen is confident their work will find a champion among the 10 state lawmakers he met with.
“They understand the value of this medicine, they understand the veteran community and they understand the need that’s right in front of us,” he said.
The advocacy is the latest move in a larger battle that will take years to win, but tough obstacles and hard work won’t deter Jensen and his friends. They’re trying to save their sisters and brothers and they won’t give up.