Sensible policy on psychedelic drugs is growing more common

CHAD KUSKE was a Navy SEAL for 18 years. When he retired, he found himself “struggling with depression, substance abuse and anger”. Various treatments had failed, until another ex-SEAL suggested psilocybin, the consciousness-altering compound in “magic mushrooms”. “It basically changed my life forever,” Mr Kuske says. “I realised that I’d been living in my own personal hell and I was keeping myself there by my own choices and I had the power to change that.”

Mr Kuske’s experience is not unusual. Scientists began studying the potential for psychedelics to treat mental illness more than 60 years ago, before anxiety over the drugs’ countercultural popularity in the 1960s shut down research. Thankfully, it has restarted—and studies are showing that psychedelic drugs have potential in treating several thorny mental-health problems. Oregon’s voters approved psilocybin for supervised use in 2020, and other jurisdictions may soon follow suit. This is good news not just for people suffering from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but also for American drug policy: it shows that evidence-based decisions are replacing moral panic.