‘I didn’t want to be on medication the rest of my life’: veteran runs psilocybin retreats for PTSD before FDA approval | US news
A.Army Ranger Jesse Gould developed post-traumatic stress disorder after suffering traumatic brain injuries from concussive blasts during three combat missions in Afghanistan and said he “drank almost every night to cope.”
In times of difficulty, veterans sometimes resorted to “medication and talk therapy, but this tended to be more of a maintenance program than actually coping,” said Gould, but at 38, he added: “I was still too young. I didn’t want to be on medication for the rest of my life.”
So, after listening to a podcast about ayahuasca in February 2017, Gould traveled to Peru to try the drug.
“PTSD, depression and hypervigilance no longer affect me to the same degree,” said Gould, who said he has lost more than a dozen people he served with to suicide.
He thought psychedelics might help prevent more deaths, and a few months later he started the nonprofit Heroic Hearts Project, which hosts retreats where veterans can take ayahuasca or psilocybin and perhaps heal from their trauma.
State lawmakers are starting to pay attention to the potential health benefits of psilocybin, or “magic mushrooms.” Colorado, New Mexico and Oregon have legalized it for therapeutic use, and at least eight states are currently considering similar legislation. (Personal use is also legal, especially in Colorado.)
People have been consuming mushrooms for centuries, and many researchers have concluded that mushrooms are safe under certain conditions; Even some who think the mushroom has medicinal benefits argue that states should wait for Food and Drug Administration approval before legalizing it.
“I’ve always heard the argument: ‘Just wait because otherwise if something bad happens, the whole system goes haywire,’” Gould said. “I haven’t seen that. I think there’s already something bad going on with veterans because they’re taking their own lives.”
Joseph Zamaria, a clinical psychologist at the medical school of the University of California, San Francisco, who researches psychedelic-assisted therapy, said ingesting magic mushrooms can induce a “high learning state” and disrupt the brain’s default mode network, allowing people to “disconnect from a sense of self and a sense of identity.”
“If there is a repetitive channel in the person’s mind that is self-referential, damaging, and harmful — that is abusive — we want to disrupt that,” Zamaria said. “People who are traumatized [often] Internalize the trauma. So they will say, ‘I am this person.’ ‘I’m ashamed of this thing.’”
He continued: “If we loosen the grip of these narratives on someone’s mind, that person can more easily recover from the trauma.”
A study published in 2025 Journal of Psychopharmacology The study, which followed 22 adults with PTSD, found that “psilocybin administered with psychological support may be safe, well tolerated, and associated with symptomatic improvement in adults with PTSD.”
Andy Smith, a Democrat and a Minnesota state representative, recently co-sponsored legislation with a Republican that would allow residents 21 and older with conditions such as PTSD and depression to use psilocybin with a licensed facilitator. Lawmakers from both parties have introduced similar bills in Iowa, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey and New York.
“I grew up during the Iraq war, where many of my friends went off to war and came back very different,” Smith said. “We don’t have a lot of tools to help in these areas,” but psychedelic medicine shows “great potential to help those struggling with PTSD, depression, and substance use disorder.”
Still, Albert Garcia-Romeu, associate director of the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins University, said there is “limited data to support the use of psilocybin to treat PTSD, and there may be unknown risks.”
“It’s a pretty safe substance,” Garcia-Romeu said. “People took [psilocybin] “It’s been around for thousands of years, but there are small subgroups of people who, if they take this drug – or if they take it at the wrong time – can become psychotic, manic, or even violent.”
He’s skeptical of the state bills because “each one will be a little different.”
“I think it would make sense to use the FDA-approved drug route because it would come with a set of authoritative guidelines from major medical and regulatory agencies,” Garcia-Romeu said.
Gould noted that the Heroic Hearts Project avoided bad outcomes with a “robust” recruitment process, which meant, for example, that people with schizophrenia and certain bipolar or personality disorders would not be allowed to attend the retreat. He said the organization has hosted more than 1,500 veterans and their spouses, and none of them have experienced psychotic episodes.
“These experiences definitely carry risk, and I don’t take that lightly. That’s exactly why screening, preparation and integration are so important and why we build our programs around that,” said Gould, whose organization has a waiting list of more than 2,000 veterans.
When asked whether people offering psilocybin to people struggling with PTSD should wait for federal approval, he said: some governors we discussedGould noted the number of deaths by suicide among veterans. In 2023, suicide rate Among veterans in the United States, the rate was 35 per 100,000 people; This was more than twice the general population rate. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“I don’t want to repeat this cycle,” Gould said. “So, even if states figure this out and it’s a little cumbersome, I’d prefer that to saying, ‘Hey, there’s no other option.’
