'Major Step': New Law Would Prep VA for FDA-Approved Psychedelic Treatments

New bipartisan legislation introduced by military veterans serving in Congress would require the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to responsibly evaluate and implement emerging mental health treatments for veterans, including psychedelics.

Senate Bill 4220, also known as the Veterans Health Administration Novel Therapeutics Preparedness Act, was introduced March 27 by Navy SEAL veteran and U.S. Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT) and was co-sponsored by Sens. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), a Marine Corps veteran, Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), an Army National Guard veteran, and John Boozman (R-AR), chair of the MilConVA Appropriations Committee. Advocates deem it a "major step" in providing veterans new therapeutic modalities.

The legislation, if passed, would establish a dedicated Office of Novel Therapeutics within the VA to oversee and implement emerging therapies by establishing centralized governance, workforce readiness planning, and clinical implementation infrastructure within the Veterans Health Administration. The treatments would then advance through the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for approval.

It would also continue the congressional push of providing psychedelics to military veterans as part of modernized treatment methods. Military.com previously reported that the “Innovative Therapies Centers of Excellence Act of 2025” sponsored by Gallego would designate not fewer than five VA medical facilities that can offer these different therapeutic modalities that include further psychedelic research and implementation.

“After young Americans who signed up to fight for our nation and were willing to give up their own lives for others come home, we better make sure the VA is ready to care for them and that they have access to the best, most innovative care available,” Sheehy said in a statement.

The VA’s core mission is to care for veterans, and this bipartisan bill will help the hardworking men and women at the VA fulfill that critical mission.

Military.com reached out to Sheehy for additional remarks.

Law Would Rewire VA Therapy Models, Implementation

Currently, psychedelic therapies are under FDA review and have been lauded by some politicians and advocates for their potential in treating veterans affected by conditions that include post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, substance use disorders, traumatic brain injury, and chronic pain.

The bill was introduced just prior to the Pentagon releasing its annual military service member suicide data, which found a slight year-over-year decrease between 2023 and 2024 yet cautioned about long-term trends remaining generally stagnant dating back to 2011.

If passed, the Office of Novel Therapeutics within the Veterans Health Administration would be established with the following parameters:

• Developing national clinical standards and care models for intensive therapeutic interventions, including patient eligibility guidance, safety protocols, interdisciplinary team models, and integration with VA mental health and suicide prevention programs.

• Assessing workforce readiness and national training standards for clinicians and peer support specialists involved in emerging therapeutic interventions.

• Creating a clinical implementation program to evaluate the safety, effectiveness and feasibility of emerging therapies in real-world VA clinical settings and inform potential system-wide adoption.

• Authorizing VA to designate “Centers of Excellence” to lead research, training and implementation of emerging therapies and share best practices across VA medical centers.

• Establishing a veteran advisory committee composed of veterans, caregivers, academic affiliates and subject matter experts to provide input on patient safety, access and patient-centered care.

• Requiring coordination with federal partners, including FDA, HHS, CMS, DOD and DEA, to support regulatory readiness and reimbursement pathways.

• Requiring annual reporting to Congress on research progress, clinical outcomes, workforce readiness and implementation barriers.

Veterans’ groups have expressed support for the legislation.

“As innovation in alternative therapies accelerates and studies on their effectiveness show increasingly clear results, our health care system has not kept pace and veterans are the ones paying the price: physically, mentally, and too often, financially,” Dr. Kyleanne Hunter, CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said in a statement. “After 20 years of war, the post-9/11 generation is still carrying invisible and visible wounds, and we owe them access to the most effective care available today, not years from now.”

Jim Marszalek, executive director of Disabled American Veterans Washington Headquarters, said the time to pass these new therapies is now.

“This legislation takes a critical step by building the necessary infrastructure, workforce capacity and clinical standards before these therapies arrive—not after,” he said in a statement.

'First Major Step in Right Direction'

Juliana Mercer, executive director of Healing Breakthrough and a Marine Corps veteran, told Military.com that multiple bills introduced in both the House and Senate are part of years-long efforts.

She is optimistic about the Sheehy bill and implementing the Office of Novel Therapeutics, calling it “the first major step in the right direction.”

Prior to her current role at Healing Breakthrough, an organization working to drive equitable access to evidence-based mental health treatments through the VA, Mercer was volunteering with Heroic Arts Project and advocating for state-level issues.

That’s when she was contacted as part of a mission to help the VA roll out an MDMA-assisted therapy program—perceived at the time to be the first type of new medicine of its kind to get FDA approval.

Today, about a dozen trials are occurring due to advocacy work and philanthropic efforts. But for Mercer, the mental health component goes back even further.

She served in the Marines from 2001-2016, with the first 10 years active-duty and the rest Reserved. She was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in 2005 and 2010, respectively, and also spent approximately five years at the Wounded Warrior Battalion. 

She said that within the volatility of warfare, seeing gruesome injuries and others more emotional and under the surface, it revealed “the true resiliency of our Marines but also [I] really saw the true cost of war on not just the individual, but the family, the community.”

“That work enabled me to transition into the veteran nonprofit space when I left active duty,” Mercer said. “I started working with organizations that were focused on helping veterans thrive post-military, whether it was finding them purposeful employment, getting them engaged in education, community involvement, physical activity, everything that you can possibly think of. We were trying to connect our veteran population, too.”

Rewriting the Stigma Nationwide

Nercer joked how as a young sergeant in the Battalion years ago, she heard the word “holistic” and it conjured an initial feeling of “hippie b*******.”

But that sentiment quickly altered, translating to encompassing therapies that went beyond just medicine and included the arts, connecting canines with veterans, yoga and meditation, and, ultimately, psychedelics.

“I think over the last 20 years, there's been quite a shift in the awareness and also openness to non-traditional types of healing,” she said. “I think one that's a testament to the community really showing up and wanting to help connect veterans to these modalities."

But also [it's a testament to] veterans seeking solutions outside of the VA, outside of the norm, because we're not finding the solutions that we need and we're getting desperate. We're looking far and wide for these solutions.

Progress is incremental but being seen in real time. Mercer has seen bipartisan pushes across the country, meeting with over 550 offices throughout the last four years—about 90% of which have expressed supporting causes like these.

That remaining 10% still holds a certain view of psychedelics and related modalities, Mercer added.

“It's mostly the stigma,” she said. “It's mostly very conservative groups, all they see is a Schedule 1 substance and they don't take the time to learn and understand the science behind it and that the DEA scheduled these substances in the past, but there's actual medical promise.”