‘Magic mushrooms’ for therapy? Vets help sway conservatives

Matthew Butler, who spent 27 years in the Army, holds a 2014 photograph of himself during his last deployment in Kabul Afghanistan, on Wednesday, March 30, 2022, in Sandy, Utah. Butler is now one of the military veterans in several U.S. states who are helping convince conservative lawmakers to take cautious steps toward allowing the therapeutic use of hallucinogenic mushrooms and other psychedelic drugs. The therapeutic use of so-called magic mushrooms and other psychedelic drugs is making inroads in several U.S. states, including some with conservative leaders, as new research points to their therapeutic value and military veterans who have used them to treat post-traumatic stress disorder become advocates. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The medicinal use of hallucinogenic mushrooms is making inroads in U.S. states as military veterans advocate for the therapeutic value of psychedelic drugs, including in conservative states like Utah, Texas, and Oklahoma. At least four states have approved studying their medicinal properties in the last two years and several U.S. cities have also decriminalized so-called magic mushrooms.

Oregon is the first, and so far only, state to legalize the therapeutic use of psilocybin, the psychedelic active ingredient found in certain mushrooms. However, studying them has gotten approval not only in blue states like Hawaii, Connecticut, and Maryland, but also GOP-led Utah, Texas, and Oklahoma, where the state House passed a bill this year.