Rep. Lou Correa My priority is taking care of those who fought and sacrificed so much for this country’s freedom. It’s veterans. Every day, 20 to 40 veterans take their own lives here in the United States. One is too many, let alone up to 40 a day. Trying to find solutions, trying to find cures, therapies for veterans. And in my opinion, everything I’ve seen, this is a cure, not only a treatment, but a cure: Psychedelics cure veterans, and that’s not coming from Lou, but rather my discussions with veterans. But not only is it just having this medicine there, it’s really a process. It’s making sure that we have experts who know what they’re doing when they treat veterans. Ibogaine, one of the psychedelics that’s widely used right now, is a very powerful medication, very powerful drug from Africa. If you don’t have people that know what they’re doing, we could have people injured or killed, lose their lives when they’re being through treatment. So what we want to do, what I want to with this legislation, is prepare, plow the field, so that when we can administer these medicines for our veterans, it’s done by people who are experts and who know what their doing.
Terry Gerton Congressman Bergman, you’ve seen the effects of PTSD up close in your own service in the Marine Corps. What is it about this legislation that would address the veteran mental health crisis in a way that current VA programs don’t?
Rep. Jack Bergman Well, you know, when it comes to our job as legislators, to compliment what Lou said, we’re here as elected representatives, to make sure we do the right things for all the American people, but especially focused here on veterans. And it’s our role as Congress to provide the guidelines and the guardrails, and in some cases, the money to enable the good research that in some small ways is being done, but we need more of it. And we need to bolster the quality of the research, but also bolster the confidence by risk-averse bureaucracies here. And bureaucracies aren’t bad, but risk aversion is one of the challenges that we have. If we’re going to send money for a program or a project, or in this case, research into alternative therapies for veterans, we need the researchers to go after it and feel that we’ve got their back so they can turn out the results that’ll lead to therapies that’ll help the veterans lead a more proactive, full life.
Rep. Lou Correa And Jack, not only do we want that research, we also want a deadline. We want to make sure people move on this stuff. Think about the situation in the United States. Sixty, 70 years of a war on drugs. It’s very hard for people to start thinking that things like psychedelics can actually be a treatment, a medicine for PTSD, a medicine for mental health, a medicine for alcoholism and a medicine to treat drug addiction. It’s very hard, it’s contradictory, and what we’ve got to do is change, like Jack said, that bureaucratic thinking. And it’s not easy, but we’ve got to do it.
Terry Gerton So, Congressman Correa, can you walk us through the core provisions of this bill? What would these centers of excellence look like and how would they operate within the VA system?
Rep. Lou Correa We want to keep it as flexible as possible, but the goal here is to make sure that these centers of excellence train people, have trained individuals who actually know how to implement these new treatments, these new medications, these new medicines. I’ve gone to Mexico a number of times. I’ve seen this treatment implemented. It’s not done in a back room somewhere. It’s done in a hospital setting. You have emergency room technicians there. You have the emergency room nurses prepared in the event something doesn’t go as planned. I’ve also talked to veterans who have gone through this treatment and come out very well. And a couple have said, almost cost me my life. So you’ve got to make sure that you know what you’re doing. And again, I use the term plow of the field, because when the VA says you can do this, well, who’s going to actually implement it? And that’s the goal. Make sure it’s ready to go.
Terry Gerton Congressman Bergman, you addressed the risk aversion kind of inherent in our bureaucracy. This bill would establish five centers. Is that enough to overcome the risk aversion and really make a national impact?
Rep. Jack Bergman Well, I believe it’s a start because we already have a model in place. The Centers of Excellence for Traumatic Brain Injury, the four centers that were established back in the ’90s: Palo Alto, Richmond, Minneapolis and Tampa were the original four. So there’s such a thing as starting too small and starting too big. I believe that this number is right. If you could, in an ideal world, the mindset within the research centers is that it’s a leapfrog of who can do better, in a very positive way so we all learn from the successes of the others. Not just research for research, as Lou said. We want outcomes and move forward, not just continue more research. Let’s get rolling.
Rep. Lou Correa You know, I met a gentleman he was active duty, in Mexico getting treatment. Didn’t want me to know his name, anything else he said. “I just want to get cured.” And I asked him, what was the process you went through in choosing this specific clinic? He said, I just did the best I could online research. Said, I didn’t have much to go with, but I’m desperate to get cured of my addictions and stay in the military. As Jack said, we want to start — is a number too big, too small, we just have to move forward and begin to give these desperate veterans a solution, something that works in a setting that is actually medically qualified and not just guessing about where to go and how to do it.
Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Rep. Lou Correa, Democrat of California, and Rep. Jack Bergman, Republican of Michigan. Congressman Bergman let me come back to you. This is a bipartisan effort. What is driving the bipartisanship and how do you plan to expand the folks who sign on to this as you introduce the bill?
Rep. Jack Bergman What drives the bipartisanship, I think it’s the same in any subject you go to. It’s people like Lou and I who came here to serve our constituents, but also serve our country. And in our case, focusing now on serving our veterans. Because when you think about what we’re proposing here, if these new ways of providing therapy and helping veterans overcome those issues that they have — if it’ll work for veterans, it’ll pretty much work for the vast majority of the American population. And as someone in the military who served for more than a few years, we used to joke about, hey, as veterans, we’ve been lab rats on some somebody’s experimental table. I’m OK with that. I’m OK with that because I came to serve our country and so did Lou. So we see this as only positive, for us being an example of people working together.
Rep. Lou Correa And let me add to Jack’s comments, which are these young men and women who sign up as volunteers to defend our country, they don’t go in asking whether Democrat or Republican to serve our nation. They all serve equally and they all sacrifice and give equally. And so to me, the job of helping veterans is not Democrat or Republican, but it’s a national job, responsibility that we have to comply with.
Terry Gerton Congressman Correa, in one of your earlier comments, you mentioned the war on drugs and concern about psychedelic drugs. Have your comrades in Congress expressed any concern about that approach?
Rep. Lou Correa Not openly, but you know, when you approach people and tell them about what we’re doing … they’ll smile at you and say, yes send me more information, and that’s essentially a nice “don’t call me, I’ll call you” situation. But again, it’s very hard, and again it’s not Republicans — but it’s Republicans and Democrats that are very hesitant to move in this direction. It’s kind of shocking to me. You always think about Democrats open to this. Uh-uh, this is across the board. Both Ds and Rs with a lot of hesitation. But I ask people to focus on the veterans; 20 to 40 suicides a day is way too many. One is too many. And this is the goal, making sure we cure these veterans of what haunts them. The things, those invisible wounds they bring back from the battlefield. We can do better as a country. The solutions are there.
Terry Gerton Congressman Bergman, beyond the perhaps concern about the particular medications, are there other major hurdles that you’re anticipating the bill will need to deal with in order to translate this into real capabilities?
Rep. Jack Bergman If you don’t think there’s going to be another hurdle in life, you’re already missing something. Because there’s, you know, Murphy’s Law and a law of unintended consequences and all those things that happen naturally. And we just assume there’s going to be natural hesitance on the part, as Lou just talked about, some of our colleagues who just, they just don’t want to have to put this on their plate. For whatever reason, they’re not comfortable with it. And I get that, that’s okay. That’s why we’re partnered together to build the confidence in as many of our colleagues as possible. We’re not Cheech and Chong here. We may think we’re funny, but as my wife says, you’re not funny. Okay. Don’t try to be funny. So, but, but the point is we are two rational gentlemen who have been around a long time, seen a lot, done a lot. And we believe that the role Congress can play here is one of positivity, if you will, for veterans first, and then the rest of the population second, to live a better, fulfilling life.
Rep. Lou Correa And the second part is the big one. Think about it. This works for veterans, it cures them of these mental challenges they have. Can you imagine what it’ll do for the rest of our society? And in my opinion, when you look at homelessness, drug addiction, alcoholism — all of that starts from mental health challenges. We may have stumbled on a tremendous cure for all the above. And to me, this means we’ve got to dig deep and make sure we can do this right.
Terry Gerton Congressman Correa, you’ve got an event on Wednesday night, a Capitol Hill briefing and public discussion on this topic. It’s at the Capitol Visitor Center from 6 to 8 p.m. What do you hope to accomplish in that session?
Rep. Lou Correa I’ll take your word that I have that event. I haven’t looked beyond tomorrow. I will continue to hope with Jack, with others, that we keep pushing forward with this medication, this cure for our veterans. Again, suicides every day. I talk to veterans on a daily basis who tell me, my friend just took his own life waiting for a cure that never came. And these are sad stories. And I’m desperate to get this medication, this cure, implemented with our veterans. I know right now, not only are veterans going to Mexico, to Costa Rica, to other foreign countries to get treatment, they have to pay cash —$5,000 or $7,000 or $8,000 per cure, per session. But there are also clandestine, below-the-radar operations that are springing up in the United States. Are they good or bad? I don’t know. Veterans deserve better from us. What do I expect to accomplish on Wednesday, today and every day? Get a system in place, get a medical procedure in place to take care of our veterans.
Terry Gerton Congressman Bergman, what message do you want to make sure that your Marines and other veterans who might be listening to this and considering joining that event on Wednesday, what do you want them to know?
Rep. Jack Bergman Number one, they’re not in this alone. You’ve got people here, Lou and I and others, that are engaged, are committed, and whoever is sitting in that room on Wednesday, I would hope that they leave that room feeling more informed that there’s a certain level of honesty and integrity involved in what we’re trying to accomplish. And if nothing else, if we could light their curiosity fire to explore this more through their staff and through others, because they see the confidence that we have in making this happen and figuring out a way towards better outcomes.
Rep. Lou Correa And let me add to Jack’s comments. We’re here, we have their back. We’ve got our veterans, we’ve got their back, we want their best interest. I don’t own any stock, any of these drug companies. I’m not in the business. I’m not here to make money off this. I’m here to help our veterans. A lot of those folks are my best friends. I grew up with them. I saw, I know many of them that didn’t come back from Vietnam. I know the pain a lot of the veterans go through. I just want to make sure that as Americans, we do the right thing for our veterans.
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