TAMPA, Florida — Psychedelics very well may have saved Marcus Capone’s life.
After 13 years of active duty, the retired Navy SEAL tried virtually every prescription drug on the market and every traditional medical approach imaginable to treat his post-traumatic stress disorder, brain injuries, depression, insomnia and other wounds of war. His wife, Amber, acknowledged the future looked dark.
“It came to a breaking point in 2017. I thought if we don’t find something meaningful I’m either going to have to leave him or he’s going to be a dead man,” Mrs. Capone told The Washington Times. “He was becoming more and more disheartened with every treatment that didn’t work. All these pharmaceuticals, all these brain clinics, all sorts of other Western [treatments] — maybe this, maybe that. Nothing worked.”
Enter psychedelic-assisted therapy. Mr. Capone traveled outside the U.S. for the treatment, which involved the natural psychedelic compounds Ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT. The decision, Mrs. Capone said, resulted in an “overnight shift” in her husband, helping him move past the myriad of prescription drugs in his medicine cabinet and even overcome excessive alcohol use.
That experience fits with the theory on how psychedelics such as LSD, psilocybin mushrooms and compounds such as MDMA — better known as Ecstasy — work: Taken in regulated doses under the care of trained therapists, the drugs can disrupt debilitating thoughts patterns and actions in patients, clearing the way for mood and behavioral improvements across the board.
In 2019, the couple founded Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions, or VETS, an organization that aims to end the epidemic of veteran suicide by offering alternative treatments for those who have found no answers in a pill bottle. The group promoted its work at the Special Operations Forces Week conference held here earlier this month.
Getting past the ambivalent, unscientific image of the therapy was the key first step, the couple says.
“We don’t care about the stigma. We don’t care about judgment,” Mrs. Capone said in an interview just off the convention floor. “I’m so sick of Band-Aids. Let’s get to the root cause.”
VETS offers funding to veterans to travel abroad to seek psychedelic-aided treatment in countries where it’s more easily accessible, and the group has established a support network to help with patients with their recovery after they return home. Hundreds have already benefited from the program, Mrs. Capone said, and the organization regularly receives far more applications than it is able to fund.
The couple’s work coincides with a broader shift across America. Outlawed for recreational use for decades and long stereotyped as the domain of Woodstock-era hippies and others on the fringes of society, psychedelic drugs such as LSD, psilocybin and others seem to be gaining a second life as legitimate medical treatments, at least in some circles.
The 2018 book “How to Change Your Mind” by noted food author Michael Pollan, and a follow-up Netflix documentary series, have helped place psychedelics squarely in the public consciousness as a legitimate treatment, one that can quite literally use the power of mind-altering drugs to open new pathways in the brain and help repair psychological and emotional damage.
The movement has sparked new research programs across the country, from a state-run psilocybin program in Oregon to drug trials in other states. The Veterans Administration reportedly is reportedly participating in several trial efforts to evaluate how the drugs — combined with more traditional psychotherapy, could help veterans deal with such problems as PTSD, substance abuse and rising suicide rates among those who served in the ranks.
Dr. Rachel Yehuda is the director of mental health at the James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center in the Bronx, who is leading one of the studies. She told the New York Times last year the approval of the tests after a long federal ban was a “watershed moment.”
“This is a time for a lot of hope,” Dr. Yehuda said.
In 2019, Johns Hopkins University launched a major new initiative to “study the mind and identify therapies for diseases such as addiction, PTSD and Alzheimer’s,” with a focus on how psilocybin could offer new treatment breakthroughs. When it was unveiled, the university billed it as “the largest research center of its kind in the world.”
A dangerous ‘bubble’?
There are more than a few skeptics of the approach. For starters, psychedelic drugs remain taboo in many corners of society, still frowned upon after being largely outlawed in the “War on Drugs” era of the 1970s and 1980s. Legalization of marijuana across the U.S. has thawed that general anti-drug attitude to some degree, analysts say.
But there are other concerns. Some researchers warn that the rapid growth of psychedelic-assisted therapy, and the enthusiasm with which its proponents are promoting it, could create something of a medical “bubble” that ultimately bursts with more research and more patients who don’t see the results they were promised.
“Until recently, this community has comprised researchers who were willing to accept the professional ramifications of working in a stigmatized area. While the early advocates of any new treatment can be expected to be enthusiastic, the interaction effects of any researcher bias with psychedelics’ sensitivity to the context of their use would contribute especially large outcome confounders, leading to limited replication of the early findings,” British scholars Tehseen Noorani and Jonny Martell wrote in a 2021 piece for the Frontiers in Psychiatry medical journal.
As time goes on, they wrote, there may be “a growth in adverse outcomes as the hype grows, the participant/patient pool is widened, and psychedelic therapies are provided in more streamlined ways.
Increasingly diverse patient populations hopeful of being cured will experience rocky ‘landings’ post-treatment, the cost of which will be borne downstream of trial analysis end points, thereby falsely inflating favorable health economic calculations.”
Until recently, American patients had to travel to psychedelic “retreats” which have thrived in Europe and Latin America, where the legal and regulatory frameworks are more welcoming.
The legalization of marijuana in the U.S. offers other cautionary tales. Some specialists warn that for-profit companies could see psychedelic-assisted therapy as a way to make money, pushing for patients to take the drugs on a consistent basis, thereby creating a new customer base.
“When suppliers of abusable drugs can have a large profit interest, then one needs to look skeptically at the information they provide,” said Jonathan Caulkins, a professor of operations research and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College.
Mr. Caulkins stressed that there are positive signs in the psychedelic research arena. But he cautioned against making far-reaching assumptions too quickly.
“This has been an area where there has been optimism and promise for a long time. And time will eventually tell. But I think it’s important not to jump to conclusions,” he said in an interview, going on to warn that the rapid proliferation of drugs, as seen with America’s opioid crisis, can quickly spiral into a major public health crisis.
“We failed to control the medical opioids and prevent them from causing harm,” he said. “If somebody could present as having PTSD even if they didn’t, and obtain a long-term take-home dose [of psychedelics] they could sell on the illegal market, that’s a diversion problem.”
While the approach could certainly change in the future, psychedelic programs right now appear focused on offering the therapy in a professional medical setting with strict supervision.
In Oregon, for example, the state’s Oregon Psilocybin Services Section began accepting applications this year for its landmark program. Each applicant undergoes a stringent licensing process.
“We expect new psilocybin service centers to open their doors to clients and for licensed facilitators to begin offering psilocybin services in 2023. It will take some time for all four license types (manufacturing, laboratory, service centers and facilitators) to become licensed and set up operations,” reads a section of the state-run Psilocybin Services website. “Each licensed service center, and the licensed facilitators who work with them, will manage their own operations and communications with clients.”
Despite the concerns, proponents insist it’s a medical avenue that must be explored. Mrs. Capone said her husband, who volunteered for the military after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, now can look forward to the latter half of his life with renewed optimism.
“He and his generation of Americans that answered the call are now in their mid-40s,” she said. “They do not have to merely survive. They can absolutely thrive in the second half of their lives.”
