By Skye Crawford
Ben Ingraham wanted to be a doctor.
He planned to attend medical school after serving as a U.S. Navy corpsman, but his time in the military was unexpectedly cut short. A traumatic brain injury and a leg injury forced him to medically retire.
While in therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder and other physical and mental health issues as he transitioned out of the military, Ingraham got support from a social worker who opened his eyes to other career paths.
After three and a half years of school, he became a therapist.
For almost a decade, Ingraham has helped clients with PTSD, anxiety, depression and other mental health issues.
“My military experience profoundly shaped how I understand trauma, resilience and a lot of unique challenges that a lot of my clients and friends and family face,” Ingraham said.
His understanding of trauma is grounded in an “optimism” for innovations for treating veterans, trauma survivors and others needing help. Among those innovations: the use of psychedelics in treating trauma.
At the North Carolina legislature and in academia, psychedelic-assisted treatment is getting attention.
The therapy involves taking a substance like psilocybin (commonly known as magic mushrooms), MDMA (also known as ecstasy) or the African plant-based medicine Ibogaine in a controlled environment — usually paired with psychotherapy to help people make sense of their experiences.
On Monday, the U.S. Department of Human Health Services and the Department of Veterans Affairs announced their partnership to collaborate on clinical development of these treatments. This comes three months after President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at speeding up access to psychedelic-assisted therapies.
North Carolina lawmakers said they hope to build on this momentum.
The HEAL Act is a bipartisan bill that would establish a $5 million research grant to support eligible projects on psychedelic-assisted therapy for trauma survivors such as veterans, first responders and victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.
It would also create a task force of veteran advocates, clinicians, state officials, Indigenous representatives and academics to study the potential of psychedelic-assisted mental health treatment and manage regulatory obstacles.
Sen. Sophia Chitlik (D-Durham), co-sponsor of the bill, said the U.S. was once a leader in psychedelic research, but now other countries are “lapping us.”
“I want North Carolina to be the first mover in evidence-based psychedelic medicine,” Chitlik said. “The HEAL Act will put our state at the forefront of offering access to innovative treatments for people who need them most.”
Veterans draw attention
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs reports that in 2023, the suicide rate for veterans in North Carolina was 32.9 per 100,000 people, compared with 18.1 per 100,000 in non-veterans. Between 2019 and 2023, NC DHHS reported, the veteran suicide rate was 2.7 times more than that of non-veterans.
Rep. Allen Chesser (R-Middlesex) said that mental health conditions such as PTSD, traumatic brain injuries and treatment-resistant depression are not responding to “traditional medicine.” Chitlik said veterans in her district are having to leave the state and country to receive the help they need.
“If we keep doing what we’ve done, we’re going to keep losing the veterans that we’ve sworn to protect,” Chesser said.
More than 600,000 veterans live in North Carolina. Sen. Bob Brinson (R-New Bern), co-sponsor of the bill, said one of his veteran constituents, Sam Pugh, was excited about the potential of psychedelic-assisted therapy and was studying to be a psychologist himself. Pugh, however, died by suicide this spring.
“I can’t help but think that if this therapy had been available, Sam might still be with us today,” Brinson said.
Research at North Carolina universities
Lawmakers and advocates are looking to researchers and academics at North Carolina’s universities to advance science that would make psychedelic-assisted therapy accessible.
Robert McClure, director of interventional psychiatry at UNC Chapel Hill, and his team are researching these treatments in people with severe depression. He said they have recruited patients for their study of psilocybin and have monitored sessions with 20 patients.
“What we are talking about here is a careful scientific evaluation of a new class of treatments,” McClure said. “These treatments are complex. They require structured protocols, trained clinicians and strong safeguards.”
McClure said The HEAL Act would support more narrow research that answers important questions such as who psychedelic treatments work for and what conditions they work best under.
At Duke University’s School of Medicine, Cynthia Kuhn, professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, has taught a summer course on psychedelic medicine for four years. She said her class is interested in the impact psychedelics have on the human brain, since that is foundational to using psychedelic-assisted therapy effectively.
“There’s still really a debate about whether you have to have the trip to have the antidepressant activity,” Kuhn said. “That is really not a known entity.”
Kuhn emphasized a need for “solid, basic science grounding” in psychedelic medicine before making these treatments clinically available.
“Whatever [rigorous scientific study] you have to do to get access to Tylenol, you should have to do to have access to psychedelics,” Kuhn said.
UNC Chapel Hill’s School of Social Work also hosts a psychedelic-assisted therapy course. Alyssa Draffin, clinical assistant professor, began teaching the elective in spring 2024 with a focus on understanding how to incorporate Indigenous use of psychedelic drugs into a “Western, individualistic” medicine model.
“There’s phrases you hear coming into this work. The ‘Wild, Wild West’ is one. The ‘Renaissance’ is another,” Draffin said.
“There’s all these ways that people talk about it, but I think what’s really crucial from an institutional standpoint is considering how to use something effectively with support as a tool for healing, without it being given all the credit for the healing.”
‘Not the final frontier’ for psychedelic mental health treatment
Draffin said she’s interested in other ways psychedelics can be used to treat mental health conditions. Currently, only ketamine-assisted therapy, which Draffin said has been effective, is legal in America.
“I think it sometimes loses its ‘magic’ because it’s a synthetic medicine, but it’s profoundly helpful for a lot of people,” Draffin said.
Draffin said ketamine therapies have been used off-label for obsessive-compulsive disorder and premenstrual dysphoric disorder. She also said a recent study led by Robin Carhart-Harris, professor in residence at the University of California in San Francisco, showed psilocybin as a possible treatment for anorexia nervosa.
Ingraham, who also is a clinical social worker, said he is excited about the direction of the field.
“I think that is not necessarily the final frontier, but I think that’s the beginning,” Ingraham said. “I think definitely being able to look into and understand what psychedelics do for the brain, but at the same time, could we innovate therapy during those moments?”
What’s next
At a June news conference in support of The HEAL Act, Chesser made sure to point out that the bill does not legalize any psychedelics.
“The focus is therapy. Therapy is what heals. These chemical compounds merely act as a catalyst,” Chesser said. “I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: If you’re not doing therapy, you’re just doing drugs.”
The General Assembly has discussed investing in psychedelic research since 2023. The Breakthrough Therapies Research Advisory Act was introduced in April that year, but it never passed.
Last month, Chesser said he hoped to see provisions for The HEAL Act in the state budget, but the version signed by Gov. Josh Stein on July 7 did not allocate funds for psychedelic research.
When the General Assembly reconvenes on July 27, lawmakers could make technical corrections to the budget and move other pieces of legislation, like The HEAL Act.
“The way I treat every bill I try to carry is: All options are on the table at all times,” Chesser said.
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