Alternate headlines:

• Veterans Deserve Evidence, Not a New Psychedelic Division
• Before Psychology Builds a House for Psychedelics, Check the Foundation

When a profession wants to make something feel settled, it builds infrastructure first. It forms a committee, offers continuing education, writes “competency frameworks,” and gives the idea a permanent address. By the time the public starts asking questions, the answer is already printed on the letterhead: this is established practice.

That is what I see in the petition now circulating within the American Psychological Association to create a Division of Psychedelic Science and Practice. According to Becker’s Behavioral Health, the petition was posted in October, is led by a 10-member steering committee, and argues that two decades of research and growing federal attention have made psychedelics “an established area of psychology rather than a niche.” The proposed division would support continuing education, clinical competency frameworks for patient selection, preparation and “integration,” and discussion of harm-reduction practices for clinicians whose patients use psychedelics on their own, outside any clinical setting.

Organizers are careful to say the division would not grant licensure, certification, or prescriptive authority, and that its materials would remain separate from formal APA policy. I take them at their word. But a profession does not need a license to shape public belief. A division creates a pipeline of trained practitioners, a body of “best practices,” and an aura of legitimacy, all before the most basic question has been answered: are these drugs safe and effective for the people being promised relief?

The evidence has not caught up with the enthusiasm

In August 2024, the Food and Drug Administration rejected the first application to approve MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD, concluding that the application had “significant limitations” that prevented the agency “from concluding that the drug is safe and effective.” That was not a fringe opinion. That was the federal regulator.

For veterans, the picture is no clearer. The 2023 VA/DoD clinical practice guideline for PTSD found insufficient evidence to recommend for or against psilocybin, ayahuasca, DMT, ibogaine, or LSD. Its work group reported that no studies meeting its search criteria were identified, and warned that these agents “might have adverse effects, risks, or both that are currently unknown.” On MDMA, the guideline noted only 176 participants across five trials, few veterans, no active-duty service members, and blinding problems that could have biased the results.

Blinding is not a technicality. When a drug produces dramatic perceptual effects, participants know whether they received it. CCHR International has reported on a 2024 review finding that in one high-dose psilocybin trial, 94 percent of participants correctly guessed which group they were in. When people know what they took, it becomes very hard to separate the drug’s effect from expectation, hope, and the hours of attention that come with the protocol.

Even researchers who describe classic psychedelics as generally well tolerated in controlled settings have documented serious harms. A 2024 meta-analysis in JAMA Psychiatry, covering 114 studies and 3,504 participants, found serious adverse events in roughly 4 percent of participants with preexisting psychiatric conditions, including worsening depression, suicidal behavior, psychosis, and convulsive episodes. The same authors raised concern about underdetection: of 68 studies published since 2005, only 16 described a systematic approach to assessing adverse events.

Those are precisely the people a psychedelic division would be training clinicians to “select” and “prepare.” Veterans living with trauma are not a footnote to that 4 percent. They are the target market.

We have seen this movie before

CCHR has spent decades documenting how psychiatric “breakthroughs” are sold to the public. In the 1990s it was the chemical imbalance theory, which gave antidepressants a scientific halo that later research could not support. CCHR International has warned that the same marketing playbook is being applied to psychedelics, now dressed in the language of “natural” and “plant-based” medicine, even though the products moving through drug development are laboratory-synthesized compounds.

The momentum is no accident. An April 2026 Executive Order directed federal agencies to fast-track approval and expand access to psychedelic drugs, and within days the FDA announced expedited review of three psychedelic drug applications. Market forecasts and investor interest followed. When regulators, investors, and professional associations all move in the same direction at once, the people with the least power in the room are the patients.

And our veterans carry a particular history. CCHR International has documented that between 1955 and 1975 more than 7,000 U.S. soldiers were exposed to over 250 chemicals, including LSD and the hallucinogen BZ, in military tests in which many were told little or nothing about the dangers. Those who served this country have already been treated as test subjects once. They should never again be the proving ground for an industry’s next product line.

Respect the person, question the treatment

I want to be clear about something. I talk with veterans and families regularly. Some have asked me about psychedelics. Some tell me they believe psychedelics helped them. I do not think anyone is wrong for wanting relief, for asking the question, or for sharing their experience. Their pain is real, and so is their right to make their own decisions.

But a right to choose means nothing without the full truth. Anyone considering a psychedelic, or any mind-altering drug, deserves straight answers to straight questions. What exactly is being offered, and what evidence supports it for someone like me? What harms have been reported, including problems that last after the drug wears off? Has anyone looked for a physical cause of my symptoms? What non-drug options have I actually been offered? And if something goes wrong, who is responsible for my care?

That is why CCHR Florida urges anyone in distress to first get a thorough medical examination by a competent, non-psychiatric medical professional. Undiagnosed physical conditions, poor sleep, nutrition, and lack of physical activity can all affect how a person feels. These are not afterthoughts. They are where honest care begins.

Florida already recognizes that veterans deserve more than another prescription. Under Section 295.156 of the Florida Statutes, the state may contract for alternative treatment options for veterans with service-connected PTSD or traumatic brain injury, including equine therapy, music therapy, service animal training therapy, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and accelerated resolution therapy, with outcomes reported to state leaders each year. That is the direction Florida should keep building on: voluntary, supervised, accountable options that do not require altering a veteran’s mind with a drug the FDA and the VA have not found to be proven.

Since 2016, CCHR Florida has helped drive more than 50 changes to Florida law to protect children, families, and people in crisis. We have learned that the public’s best protection is never a professional association’s reassurance. It is the truth, in writing, in the hands of the person who has to live with the outcome.

Veterans and their families deserve that truth.

Diane Stein is President of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights of Florida, a nonprofit mental health watchdog based in Clearwater. CCHR Florida provides facts, not medical or legal advice. No one should stop or change a prescribed medication without the supervision of a qualified medical professional. Veterans and families can reach CCHR Florida at 1-800-782-2878 or cchrflorida.org.