You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Hey, Shortwaivers, Regina Barber here.

When it comes to research on psychedelic drugs, the times are a change in.

At least that's what I hear from my psycho-not colleague, John Hamilton.

Hey, John.

Hey, how's it going, Gina?

So you cover brain science, and you're here to talk about why

mind-bending drugs from the 60s are having a moment right now, right, John? I am. And I got to say,

things really have changed a lot since then. Yeah, for a long time, psychedelic drugs were seen in the

mainstream as, like, dangerous, not helpful. I remember Dare. What has changed then?

But two things. Science and society. You know, if you look at the past couple of decades,

researchers have been taking a whole other look at drugs like psilocybin, which is the substance,

of course, that makes some mushroom solucinogenic magic. And the emphasis hasn't been on just expanding consciousness these days.

It's been on treating conditions like depression and PTSD.

So do these drugs actually work for PTSD depression?

There's more and more evidence that they do.

And that has led to a lot more mainstream acceptance of these drugs.

You know, even at the White House, I should say, listen to this cut from President Trump talking

about ibogaine, which is this powerful hallucinogen that's also known as the Leaf of God.

Can I have some, please?

Was he joking?

Only sort of. I mean, it's not like he was about to go pop a capsule of ibogaine, but he made that remark as he was signing an executive order to speed up evaluation of psychedelic drugs for treating psychiatric conditions.

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