Louisiana Senate Votes To Create Psychedelics Task Force Focused On Benefits For Military Veterans

The Louisiana Senate has passed a Republican-led resolution calling for the establishment of a task force to study and make recommendations on the potential therapeutic benefits of psychedelics for military veterans.

Sen. Patrick McMath (R) filed the legislation on Tuesday, proposing the creation of the Task Force on Alternative Therapies for Veterans, and the Senate unanimously adopted it on Wednesday.

The measure calls for a nine-member panel to “study whether certain psychedelic therapies may be beneficial to Louisiana veterans, and to propose recommendations, together with specific proposals for legislation, by written report to the legislature.”

The task force would be comprised of the chair of the Senate Committee on Health and Welfare, the governor or designee, the secretaries of the state Department of Health and Department of Veterans Affairs or designees, the chancellors of two schools within Louisiana State University or designees, the president of the Louisiana Hospital Association or a designee, a physician and veteran.

“For our military veterans, many of the deepest wounds of war are invisible,” the whereas section of the resolution says, and “our veterans deserve every opportunity to try therapies that alleviate the functional and neuropsychiatric symptoms of traumatic brain injury.”

It says that there are “some psychedelic therapies which may be beneficial to treating mental health,” citing psilocybin, MDMA, ibogaine and ketamine as examples.

The task force would be required to study clinical trials on psychedelics for certain mental health conditions, current scientific literature on the issue, actions by the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) related to this research, treatment guidelines for psychedelic therapy and patient access considerations, including “availability, affordability, accessibility, training and licensure, and other regulatory requirements”

McMath said on the Senate floor on Wednesday that “all we’re doing here is we’re creating a task force on alternative therapies for veterans.”

“This is something that’s been taking place in a number of other states, and we’re going to study this over the next 12 months,” he said.

The resolution says “the task force shall terminate on the date of the submission of its report or February 1, 2026.”

As a Senate resolution, the measure does not need to be approved by the House of Representatives or the governor to be enacted.

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Meanwhile, a Louisiana bill that would have established a tax system to prepare the eventual legalization of adult-use marijuana had an initial committee hearing last month where members narrowly rejected the plan.

HB 636 was intended to work in tandem with a separate bill from Rep. Candace Newell (D), HB 627, which would create a three-year pilot program that is “designed to test and evaluate parameters of the implementation of a permanent adult-use cannabis program,” according to a legislative analysis.

The bill filings come nearly a year after the Republican governor of Louisiana signed bills to decriminalize marijuana paraphernalia and enact restrictions on the hemp market.

That came on the same day that Gov. Jeff Landry (R) vetoed a measure that would have allowed him and future governors to issue pardons for people with past cannabis convictions, he gave final approval to the paraphernalia decriminalization proposal from Rep. Delisha Boyd (D).

As it stands in Louisiana, possession of up to 14 grams (or half an ounce) of marijuana is decriminalized, punishable by a $100 fine without the threat of jail time.

In 2022, former Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) also signed into law a measure that was designed to streamline expungements for people with first-time marijuana possession convictions.

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