Psychedelic-assisted therapy continues to be a hot topic, especially following a recent White House Executive Order that accelerated the development, review, and potential access to novel psychedelic treatments for serious mental illnesses.
Many states have advanced and even enacted new bills to embrace psychedelic assisted therapy, continuing trends seen in 2025 and previous years. As states continue to embrace pilot programs that increase access to psychedelics, the likelihood that this will soon affect workers’ comp increases, especially as these pilot programs generate more clinical data, which could support the FDA approval of psychedelic drugs.
Connecticut Senate Bill 191 was enacted, which expands the state’s existing psychedelics pilot program. Originally enacted in 2023, the pilot program gave veterans, retired first responders, and direct care healthcare workers access to MDMA-assisted and psilocybin-assisted therapy programs as part of research programs approved by the FDA. This new bill allows any adults aged 18 or older to take part in these programs, assuming they meet clinical eligibility criteria established by the institutional review board of the medical school selected to administer the programs.
The program does not list specific medical conditions, allowing for flexibility based on FDA-approved research programs. Additionally, the new bill would allow the pilot program to continue to exist even if the FDA approves an MDMA or psilocybin drug for medical use.
This bill goes into effect July 1, 2026.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed House Bill 717 into law, which directs the Georgia Composite Medical Board to issue rules and regulations for clinics administering psychedelic-assisted therapies by December 31, 2026.
The Board must create rules addressing patient safety, provider qualifications, and operational standards for licensed clinics. Once the rules are established, these clinics must be licensed by the board by July 1, 2027, which would include maintaining emergency protocols, including hospital affiliation or patient transfer capabilities, and limiting treatment to qualified providers, which the bill lists in detail.
The law also requires Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) review and reporting and imposes criminal penalties for operating without a license.
According to the bill, psychedelic-assisted therapy includes, but is not limited to:
- IV infusions of ketamine
- Any treatment or therapy using psychedelic, dissociative, or other related substances that have the potential to produce hallucinations or rapidly induce suggestibility in the user or profound changes in perceptions of reality or the self
This law reflects growing state oversight of ketamine and other emerging therapies used as potential alternatives for certain mental health and pain-related conditions, which may influence treatment considerations within workers’ comp, and could affect provider requirements and compliance expectations for our customers in Georgia.
Additionally, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt signed House Bill 3834 into law, authorizing the State Department of Health to enter into contracts with drug developers to conduct multistate drug development clinical trials to obtain FDA approval for ibogaine-based therapies.
Ibogaine is a psychedelic substance derived from the root bark of the iboga shrub from Central Africa. The bill includes various rules for drug developers, including funding obligations, required protocols and recruitment stipulations, and an agreement to prioritize access to any FDA-approved drugs that are created as a result of these trials for Oklahoma residents.
While the bill does not list what specific conditions these clinical trials must target, it does state that if these drug trials result in any FDA-approved drugs, the state of Oklahoma would be entitled to a portion of future profits, which could be used to support programs and research for conditions treatable with ibogaine, such as traumatic brain injury and opioid use disorder.
This bill goes into effect November 1, 2026.
Meanwhile, Louisiana Senate Bill 43 has received significant attention, proposing a psychedelic-assisted therapy program to address opioid use disorder, co-occurring substance use, and treatment-resistant neurological or mental health conditions
The bill would establish the Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Initiative under the Louisiana Department of Health, which would:
- Identify academic health centers that are conducting clinical studies and clinical trial-enabling studies for the use of psychedelic-assisted therapy for the treatment of opioid use disorders, co-occurring substance use disorders, and treatment-resistant neurological or mental health conditions
- Utilize the human service districts and authorities to identify eligible patients to participate in the program
- Provide information to parishes on utilizing opioid settlement funds to enroll eligible patients residing in the parish to participate in the studies or to support clinical trial-enabling studies that allow for the initiation of clinical trials that may enroll patients who reside in the parish
According to the bill, psychedelic medication would include ibogaine, ibogaine-based therapeutics, ibogaine analogs, psilocybin, psilocybin-based therapeutics, and mechanistically-similar analogs.
The bill currently requires that clinical studies be conducted under an FDA investigational new drug application, expanded access program, or other federally authorized pathway. Such studies must also be conducted on-site in a hospital, clinic, or research unit affiliated with the academic center. Furthermore, researchers must maintain a DEA Schedule I research registration and any required state-controlled substance registration.
Additionally, the bill provides information on necessary protocols, administration plans, and procedures for clinical studies to receive approval. Annual reports from each academic research health center would also be required. Introduced in March, this bill has been referred to various committees and has undergone various debates and amendments, finally passing the House 97-0 and the Senate 35-0.
