Nine veterans with PTSD went to Mexico for a psychedelic retreat. This is how they felt nearly a year later.
Photo credit: 60 Minutes
(Note: "MDMA" stands for 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, more commonly known as "Ecstasy" or "Molly").
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S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Last year, for the first time, the Veterans Administration announced it would begin funding its own clinical trials to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and addiction, using two psychedelic drugs psilocybin and MDMA.
Even if these trials are successful, it would be years before the VA could prescribe either drug for its patients. Thousands of veterans who are suffering aren't waiting, desperate for help, they're attending psychedelic retreats in countries where the drugs are legal to use, mostly in indigenous ceremonies.
In March 2024, we were invited to join nine veterans who traveled to the west coast of Mexico for a psychedelic journey they hoped would finally help ease their pain.
They came to Mexico from all over the United States, a group of nine veterans — with invisible wounds that are hard to heal.
Their destination: a remote village near Puerto Vallarta for a week-long psychedelic retreat.
Randy Weaver: Don't have it where I'm-- I'm jumping in ditches when I hear loud noises. My PTSD's-- is kind of a self-destructive form.
Randy Weaver is a police officer in New York. A former staff sergeant in the Army, he was diagnosed with PTSD in 2007, after returning home from tours in Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Randy Weaver: It's the constant, you know, what if I had done this? What if we did that, you know?
Anderson Cooper: Are those things you want to revisit while you're taking the psilocybin?
Randy Weaver: Yeah. If I could revisit them-- and see them maybe from a different perspective like, not where I failed somebody.
Anderson Cooper: Is there a particular incident that you feel that you failed somebody?
Randy Weaver: Yeah. So-- March 18th, 20 years ago.
In 2004, Weaver's platoon was caught in a firefight in an Afghan village. Two soldiers were killed, one of them his friend, Staff Sergeant Anthony Lagman. Weaver's worn this bracelet with Lagman's name on it since coming home.
Anderson Cooper: You've been wearing that for 20 years.
Randy Weaver: Yeah. Every day.
Weaver says he's tried nearly every treatment for PTSD the VA offers including talk therapy, exposure therapy, meditation, and antidepressants.
Randy Weaver: You get to a point where you're-- you're so mentally exhausted and you've created so much destruction that you-- your demons tell yourself that these-- your family would be better off without you and when those demons tell you those things every day, it's somethin' hard to ignore.
Anderson Cooper: Will this help with that?
Randy Weaver: I hope so.
The retreat was organized and paid for by the Heroic Hearts Project, a nonprofit that's helped more than 1,000 U.S. veterans with combat-related PTSD access psychedelics.
(Cont'd HERE )
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Last year, for the first time, the Veterans Administration announced it would begin funding its own clinical trials to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and addiction, using two psychedelic drugs psilocybin and MDMA.
Although I never tried magic mushroons, I am familiar with MDMA.
Even if these trials are successful, it would be years before the VA could prescribe either drug for its patients. Thousands of veterans who are suffering aren't waiting, desperate for help, they're attending psychedelic retreats in countries where the drugs are legal to use, mostly in indigenous ceremonies.
If it works, why not?
In March 2024, we were invited to join nine veterans who traveled to the west coast of Mexico for a psychedelic journey they hoped would finally help ease their pain.
They came to Mexico from all over the United States, a group of nine veterans — with invisible wounds that are hard to heal.
Their destination: a remote village near Puerto Vallarta for a week-long psychedelic retreat.
Good for them for having the guts to try it.