From New York Times, I'm Michael Borrow. This is a Daily.

More than 50 years ago, the United States outlawed psychedelic drugs.

Now, in a major shift, states and cities across the country are moving to legalize them as a medical treatment.

According to my colleague Andrew Jacobs, the sudden change of heart has a lot to do with who is now asking for these drugs.

It's Wednesday, February 22.

Andy, tell us about this woman, Juliana Mercer, and her path to these medical treatments that you have been reporting on.

So, Juliana is 40 and this in San Diego, but she went to high school in Arizona.

I was in my senior year of high school. I had a track scholarship and was going to go to college and run.

One day, she was visiting her local strip mall in Arizona and noticed all these military recruiter offices.

I was bored and curious and wondering.

She wandered in and started talking to the various recruiters.

The last office in that row was the Marine Corps office.

I knew what the Army and the Navy and the Air Force was, but didn't know what the Marine Corps was.

She ended up talking to the Marine Corps recruiter.

Everything that they told me about being a Marine was something that I wanted to be.

That day, I signed on the dotted line and committed to going to bootcamp.

By the end of that conversation, she had signed up and soon after finishing bootcamp, 9-11 happened.

I watched the towers fall. I hadn't even checked into my first unit yet.

In 2005, she was deployed to Iraq. She saw a lot of disturbing things in her time there.

Day in and day out, I saw the true cost of our country being at war.

After about six months, she was transferred to a military hospital in San Diego.

There, she worked with young soldiers who had been horribly injured in the war.

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