The Republican Psychedelics Whisperer

W. Bryan Hubbard speaks a lot about divinity. He thinks that psychedelic drugs have divine origin and can put you in touch with a higher power. He also believes that his role in catalyzing the most prominent political action supporting psychedelics to date was divinely orchestrated.And so meeting him at Trinity United Methodist Church in downtown Denver felt natural. The late-April light streamed through stained-glass windows while Hubbard, a broad-shouldered man with straight posture, settled into a pew. His brown hair was pulled back into a low bun, and he wore a plaid shirt and blue jeans. In a southern lilt, he described how he’s been generating previously unheard-of Republican enthusiasm for psychedelics, in particular for a drug called ibogaine. Though robust data from U.S.-based clinical trials about this drug are lacking, some researchers—along with a number of enthusiasts—believe that ibogaine may help people with opioid addiction and withdrawal, and perhaps PTSD and traumatic brain injuries too.On a Saturday morning a couple of weeks before Hubbard and I met, Donald Trump signed an executive order that directed several federal agencies to accelerate research on psychedelics—including ibogaine—as treatments for mental-health conditions. Rumors about such an order had circulated among psychedelics insiders since the beginning of April, when Joe Rogan had hosted Hubbard and former Texas Governor Rick Perry on his podcast. When the headphones came off, Hubbard told me, he decided to ask Rogan for a favor: Would he contact the president about ibogaine? As Rogan recounted at the Oval Office, “Trump’s reply was, ‘Sounds great. Do you want FDA approval?’” (At the signing, Trump didn’t know at first how to pronounce the word ibogaine, though he did jokingly ask if he could have some.)From the beginning of Trump’s second presidency, many psychedelics enthusiasts hoped that his administration would be favorable to the medical use of psychedelic drugs. MDMA for PTSD a