I'm Aisha Roscoe, and this is a Sunday story from Up First, where we go beyond the news of the day to bring you one big story.

Today, we're going to take a trip through the world of psychedelics.

Now, for me, that word makes me think of party drugs like LSD and ecstasy and magic mushrooms.

You know, people going on a trip far out.

But in the last few decades, there's been a surge of research showing that psychedelics can

help with mental health conditions that can be very hard to treat, like PTSD, depression, addiction. Still, there are major

obstacles to the widespread use of psychedelics, including the fact that they're illegal

under federal law and that doctors can't prescribe them. Last summer, it seemed like there might finally be an opening for psychedelics to become a part

of the medical mainstream.

The FDA reviewed its first official application for a psychedelic treatment, a version of

ecstasy known as MDMA to treat PTSD.

But the FDA ultimately rejected the application, citing flawed data and questionable research.

This was a sign for many people in the industry that it could be years before psychedelic

treatments would be federally approved.

But a couple of months ago, the federal government changed its tune.

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

recently told members of Congress that he wants to expedite the approval of psychedelic treatments.

This line of therapeutics has tremendous advantage of given in a clinical setting, and we are working

very hard to make sure that that happens within 12 months.

Joining us now is NPR's Rachel Carlson.

She's a producer on our science podcast, Shortwave.

Today, on the Sunday story, Rachel takes us through the current state of psychedelics research,

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