Former Trade Minister hopes TGA approves MDMA, magic mushroom treatment

Australia’s medical regulator is expected to make a decision on psychedelic drug access today as a former Liberal minister again advocated their use.

A former Liberal trade minister has advocated the use of magic mushrooms and MDMA to help treat mental illnesses claiming the current methods are not working.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration is expected to make a decision on legalising MDMA and psilocybin – the active ingredient in magic mushrooms – to treat depression and post-traumatic stress disorder today.

Former Trade Minister and board member at Mind Medicine Australia Andrew Robb said he is hopeful the drugs will be approved.

Federal Trade Minister Andrew Robb in his Parliament House office in Canberra.

Andrew Robb is congratulated by then PM Malcolm Turnbull after announcing his retirement from politics in 2016.

“We’re very hopeful based primarily on the results over the last 10 to 15 years. More than 120 trials in the US, the UK and Israel. We think the TGA taking account of these magnificent results will schedule these psychedelics,” he told 2GB.

“We’re seeing up to 60 to 80 per cent remission in trials overseas and it is very exciting what’s happening. It is really re-emerging after 50 or 60 years of being banned which was largely a political initiative.

“The medicinal use is being seen as a new frontier we need a game changer because the current antidepressants are not keeping up with the massive growth in mental health in Australia and they’re not adequate.”

Magic mushrooms.

If these drugs are approved it would be reclassified from a prohibited substance, which is known as schedule 9, to a controlled medicine, which is schedule 8.

The campaign to reclassify MDMA and psilocybin has been driven by Mind Medicine Australia which submitted the rescheduling applications to the TGA in July 2020.