Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York congresswoman and impassioned advocate of a Green New Deal, continues to take a progressive, science-friendly approach to politics. Speaking to the New York Post yesterday (June 8), she outlined plans to encourage and expand research on drugs such as ecstasy and psilocybin (magic mushrooms) for medicinal use.
AOC filed legislation on Friday (June 7) to encourage the use of such drugs for a variety of ailments, proposing a bill amendment that would allow the government to spend taxpayer money on research.
The congresswoman has criticised the war on drugs in the past, particularly for its effect on racial minority groups, and has praised the legalisation of marijuana as a step in the right direction for racial justice. However, talking to the Post, she has also pointed to the war on drugs as a barrier to medical use.
“Right now, because of older provisions from the war on drugs, it’s preventing scientists from doing this medical research,” she says. “So I’ve introduced an amendment to expand the research on these drugs.”
As she points out, existing researchers are optimistic. For example: “There’s a lot of early promising research from Johns Hopkins (University) on the effect of using psilocybin research for treating our veterans with PTSD.”