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Hey, everybody, welcome to this episode of the Buck Brief. We're joined by Julianna Mercer. She is a Marine Corps veteran and the director of Public Advocates advocacy for Healing Breakthrough, which you'll tell us about here us to do with veterans and PTSD and treatment. Juliana, thanks for being here. First of all, thank you for your service.
Thank you so great to be here. Buck.
All right, let's start with this. You're in the Marine Corps.
Now you're doing work to help fellow veterans through this organization, Healing Breakthrough.
What is this entity? What does it do? What do you focus on?
So, Healing Breakthrough has a mission to get MDMA assisted therapy into the VA system for all veterans that can benefit from it, and by benefit from it, it means heal and solve their PTSD. MDMA just received their new drug applification from the FDA with final results of seventy one percent efficacy in eliminating a PTSD diagnosis and of those that didn't get completely eliminate their diagnosis. They have
an eighty six percent reduction in symptoms. You compare that to our current gold standards, where we're only seeing a thirty percent reduction in symptoms. You can see why this is something that's really exciting and we want to make sure we get into the hands of veterans.
So if you could walk me through this a little bit. MDMA this is like ecstasy is what people usually call it, right, I mean as the street drug name, So go ahead, correct.
So there is MDMA found in ecstasy, but the pharmaceutical that has been used for these clinical trials and that it is going to be FDA approved, is very different from the street drug. It's unadulterated and it's not mixed with anything that you would find on the streets.
No sure or different. I'm just wondering how did this come about? Like take me back to the beginning here. I mean, for I have heard and you're hearing more and more about this. People are talking about ayahuasca and the veteran community. I have friends, particularly from the special operations side, who have taken who have gone on these you know, going to these sort of special medical clinics.
Some of them are outside of the US, and they take drugs that are still not even It's not just that they're not given here, they're still technically illegal here. And some of them have had very powerful results. And they're friends of mine, So I know something's going on here, right, I mean, they're telling me they took aahuascar. There's another one. I'm forgetting the name. What starts with an R. I think, yes, I begain, I begain, thank you? I begin like, where
does this Where does this research? Where did this start? How did we get into this realm where I mean, you're doing public advocacy for this?
Now?
How did anyone figure out that some of these drugs I think I begain comes from like a toad venom basically that is distilled, Is that right or something like that?
One of these medications that's five MEODMT comes from the toad venom I again comes from the African root. So there you're seeing and hearing a lot of folks leaving the country going to get healing through these therapies in places where it's not illegal. I personally was able to
experience one of these therapies. One of the breakthrough therapies outside of the US and was able to see almost twenty years of trauma and grief just completely leave my body overnight, and with the help of talk therapy, was able to really get to the root cause of my issues and was able to heal. And that is kind of what got me on the track of doing this advocacy, learning about these modalities. So back to MDMA, which is the one that's going.
To be FDA approved.
It was formulated in nineteen twelve by Merk and it was being used for talk therapy very successfully, but it did leak out into the rave scene and was scheduled by the DEA in the mid eighties, and so that effective use was no our healthcare providers were no longer able to use it. And so for the last thirty years there's been an organization called maps now lycos that has been making sure that the research doesn't get lost.
So it's taken thirty years for them to get this through the FDA process, and we just saw the new drug application get accepted and we're anticipating FDA approval for MDMA assisted therapy in August of this year.
I mean, this is fascinating stuff. What I mean I have so many questions. One of them is, how is the medical community reacting to this so far?
Right?
Because these are you know, we've always known when it comes to opiates, for example, that it's been known for a very long time, centuries, if not a millennia, that these things can be used for pain management, right, also highly addictive and can be dangerous. But people generally don't think of some of these other drugs, and specifically MDMA as something that is therapy. It's so ingrained in the
public mind. This is a part, as you said, a party drug, a rave drug, that this could help treat and or even possibly in some cases, not all, but some cure veterans of extreme PTSD that they have been dealing with as a result of the wars we've been fighting abroad. That's a lot i thing for people to take in. How is the medical community reacting. Are there are there big advocates for it? Are they scared they don't want to go near it because the stuff is technically illegal still?
Yeah, So I think the medical community and the community at large is has been starting to be educated on the great potential of these novel treatments.
They're also.
Destigmatizing through the veteran voices that you're hearing. So veterans are coming home and they're touching their communities with these voices and saying, after fifteen years of complex chronic PTSD, this one illegal medication that I had to leave the country for gave me twenty years worth of therapy. And so the veteran voices helping to destigmatize We're also we have folks inside of the VA at the top and the bottom that are working to study these substances. They're
being studied at all of our higher ed institutions. Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins is also studying these. So there's been a lot more science behind it and a lot more education happening. So people are starting to understand the potential use of these and a lot of the science is also showing us that there is minimal to little harm when you use these substance correctly with the help of a mental health care provider.
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There is? But it's minimal.
I'm on the hill every day talking to our legislators, and when I'm able to explain to them the science behind this, and I'm able to show them that this is a treatment that has medical value, it's a lot easier for them to wrap their heads around it. We are still fighting the stigma of the you know, the the sixties and seventies, the War on drugs, and are our DEA telling us that these are Schedule one substances,
which means they hold no medical value. And so we're finding out now that that is not true, and through the science and research, we're able to start to help people change their minds about the stories that we were told that these had no medical use.
Is there any.
Change in legislation that may be coming that would address the legality of this for medicinal use. And we've seen something of a progression like that over the course of many years with marijuana. And there used to be a lot of talk, gosh, I think, like twenty years ago now about medicinal marijuana for specifically glaucoma and some other conditions, and some of the studies.
For it or that were in support of it.
Now marijuana has also just gone legal in a lot of places at the state level. Is there an interest in changing the law so that veterans have I mean just the fact that they have to leave the country to get this therapy. And I know it's not just MDMA we mentioned I begain and some of the others ayahuasca. That seems to be an impediment that's unnecessary given the results that are already being seen.
So there's a couple of things happening.
The Breakthrough Therapy's act is looking to reschedule Schedule one substances to Schedule two when the FDA deems them a breakthrough therapy.
So breakthrough therapy.
Designation means that there's great promise through this medication and the.
FDA will fast track it through the FDA process.
When it's a Schedule one substance, there's a lot of barriers to research. MDMA, for example, receive breakthrough therapy status in twenty seventeen, and it's been almost eight years until we're going.
To see it actually be FDA approved.
So because of those barriers to studying schedule one substances, we're seeing a pause in how quickly we can get these medications approved and studied. So the Breakthrough Therapy is ACT is hoping to correct that so it's easier to study substances when they get rescheduled and deemed a breakthrough therapy.
The other thing that we're doing.
Is trying to ensure that the VA is ready to roll out MDMA assisted therapy in the VA system as soon as md A is FDA approved. There you mentioned some of these other compounds. They show great promise and they're in various various parts of the research funnel. There's over I think there's over five hundred different psychedelic compounds that are being studied, and it's not just for mental
health conditions. It's also for pain management for Alzheimer's. There's a lot of different ways that these modalities can be potentially helpful to a lot of the things that we've been lacking answers.
You mentioned a piece of legislation, Where does that stand right now on the hill? And and are you getting you know, veterans issues is one of the few areas I mean, I you know, we're we're really just focusing on your area and your expertise here in my h in my day job, you could say, Juliana, I spent a lot of time thinking about politics, right, Veterans issue is one of the few areas where you can get a lot of bipartisan consensus generally speaking. Are you seeing
that on this issue? Are are both sides equally willing to consider some of these these new breakthrough therapies even though there's this kind of public stigma about some of these substances. Let's be honest. I mean, what's what's the temperature like on the hill?
I think it's the most bipartisan issue on the hill. Our legislators have been, like like myself, trying to find solutions to the veterans suicide epidemic, and we've been banging our heads against the wall because we haven't had any solution that actually works. So when I walk into their offices, and I show them a solution that two thirds of those that go through this treatment no longer qualify for a PTSD diagnosis.
This is the answer that they have been looking for as well.
And so I'm finding very little resistance to getting support for ensuring that MDMA assisted therapy is available in the VA system.
Yeah, and I think it's so important for a lot of the people listening or watching now know people or maybe they themselves have PTSD and if you told any of them, and I know this from talking to them about it over the course of many years, now that they had a two to one hundred chance of really getting all the you know, as long as it wasn't extremely dangerous or something for they would take that right.
I mean they would because some.
Of them haven't found a lot of success with cognitive therapy alone. Some of them still struggle with the flashbacks and things like that. So when you're talking about a two out of three shot, I think that that just goes to show how promising this is and what a breakthrough this could be. Just taking a moment here for the TUNNELA Towers Foundation, an organization does a tremendous amount of good and make sure and make sure that we
never forget. This means never forgetting nine to eleven, never forgetting the soldiers and first responders who risk their lives in bodies for our country and communities. The foundation is committed to helping these heroes and their families. Heroes like retired Air Force Lieutenant Michael Cardo's Lieutenant Cardinal Cardos served his country for twenty years and received numerous commendations, including a Bronze Star. During his time overseas, he was exposed
to toxic burn pits. Eighteen hours after being diagnosed with service related cancer, he passed away. Tune the Towers paid off the mortgage on his family's home, enabling his widow and their six children to stay in that home, removing that financial burden. The foundation helps gold Star families and the families of fall and first responders, as well as catastrophically injured heroes and homeless veterans. Help families like the Cardos donate eleven dollars a month. Tunnel the Towers at
T two T dot org. That's t the number two T dot org.
I donate every month. It's really easy, you can set it up. It's recurring.
Please team join me in this one T two T dot org. Juliana, thank you for telling us all about this. I know you're you're on the hill and you're trying to move the ball forward with legislation. For anybody who's interested either in just learning more or also perhaps helping out or maybe finding some of the resources that could be available to them if they themselves have a service related PTSD, where can people go and how can they get involved?
Healing Breakthrough dot org for more information. If you're interested in the clinical trials, it's a clinicaltrials dot gov. And if you're a veteran that is looking to connect with these therapies, Heroicheartsproject dot org.
All Right, there we go. Juanna, thank you again for your service and your time today. We appreciate it.
Thank you. Buck, great talking to you.
Thank you.