American veterans have been traveling to clinics in Mexico and paying between $15,000 and $20,000 out of pocket to receive ibogaine treatment for PTSD, traumatic brain injury, and opioid addiction. They are doing it because the treatments available to them through the VA have not been enough and because the stories they hear from other veterans about ibogaine are compelling. Marcus Luttrell, the former Navy SEAL whose story became the film Lone Survivor, stood in the Oval Office on Saturday and told the president that ibogaine absolutely changed his life for the better. He is one of thousands of veterans who have said the same thing.

That matters. It matters enormously. Veterans with PTSD, traumatic brain injury, and addiction deserve every treatment option that science can responsibly offer them. If ibogaine can help, the federal government has an obligation to find out as quickly and as rigorously as possible. On that point, the bipartisan consensus that has been building around psychedelic research for years is right.

But how we find out matters as much as whether we find out. Ibogaine is known to cause irregular heart rhythms. It has been linked to more than 30 deaths in the medical literature. The NIH funded research on it in the 1990s and discontinued that work specifically because of its cardiovascular toxicity. The most rigorous recent American study, conducted at Stanford, enrolled 30 veterans and showed promising results for PTSD, depression, and anxiety. It did not include a placebo group, which is an essential feature of rigorous medical research. Thirty veterans with no control group is not sufficient evidence to fast-track a drug with known cardiac risks to FDA approval in a matter of weeks.

Trump's executive order was prompted by a text from Joe Rogan. The president responded with "Sounds great. Do you want FDA approval? Let's do it." The FDA is now issuing national priority vouchers that can cut review times from months to weeks for three psychedelics. The agency's commissioner said the vouchers will allow drugs to be approved quickly if they are in line with national priorities. National priorities are not a scientific standard. They are a political one. The FDA's approval process exists to protect patients from drugs that harm them. Ibogaine has harmed people. It has killed people. The question of whether its benefits outweigh its risks for specific populations under specific conditions is exactly the question that rigorous clinical trials are designed to answer, and that question deserves a rigorous answer before the federal government fast-tracks approval.

Veterans also deserve something that no executive order has addressed. If ibogaine is approved and becomes a recognized treatment for PTSD and traumatic brain injury, it must be covered by VA healthcare and accessible to every veteran who could benefit from it regardless of their income. Right now the veterans most likely to benefit are the ones who can afford a $15,000 trip to a clinic in Mexico. That is not a healthcare system. That is a system that rations potentially life-saving treatment by wealth. Any administration that is serious about helping veterans must address that gap directly.

The goal is right. The urgency is right. The scientific process must match both.

Sign this petition to demand all ibogaine and psychedelic research fast-tracked under Trump's executive order adhere to rigorous scientific standards including placebo-controlled trials and cardiac safety monitoring, require the VA to cover any FDA-approved psychedelic treatments so veterans can access them regardless of income, and ensure FDA approval timelines are determined by evidence of safety and efficacy not by political pressure or podcast conversations.