Australia reclassifies psychedelics to facilitate medical use, as advocates push for similar move in US

Aus­tralia’s Ther­a­peu­tic Goods Ad­min­is­tra­tion (TGA) has re­clas­si­fied two psy­che­del­ic sub­stances to fa­cil­i­tate their use as med­i­cines for cer­tain men­tal health con­di­tions, a move that some ad­vo­cates say could serve as an ex­am­ple for the US.

Aus­tralia an­nounced in Feb­ru­ary that start­ing Ju­ly 1, au­tho­rized psy­chi­a­trists can pre­scribe drugs con­tain­ing psilo­cy­bin, an ac­tive sub­stance in “mag­ic mush­rooms,” and MD­MA for treat­ment-re­sis­tant de­pres­sion and post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der, re­spec­tive­ly. Those are the on­ly two con­di­tions for which TGA has said there is “cur­rent­ly suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence for po­ten­tial ben­e­fits.”

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