As research into psychedelic therapies to address PTSD in veterans expands, Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones wants San Antonio to be considered as a location for clinical trials.
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Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Doug Collins visited San Antonio last month and had a conversation with Jones, during which they discussed how psychedelic-assisted therapy is being used in VA clinical trials to treat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health conditions.
Jones asked in a letter to Collins on Monday that San Antonio receive future opportunities to be a part of VA psychedelic drug trials.
She’s also calling for his support in the appropriation of $30 million in the 2027 federal budget for a new VA hospital in San Antonio, and she highlighted the passage of a new city ordinance banning most landlords from turning away veterans paying rent with a federal housing voucher.
During his visit, Collins also toured the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans Hospital, where he signaled continued support for psychedelic treatments.
“We’ve talked about a lot of things [like] how we reorganize our hospitals, putting them first, going into psychedelic treatment, going into alternative treatments, doing the things that need to be [done] for the veterans,” he said.
Jones’ ask for the city to be involved with alternative treatment trials comes on the same day that the VA announced a partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services on psychedelic trials to treat veterans and others with mental illness.
The VA is currently involved in 20 active clinical trials focused on psychedelic therapies, however none take place in San Antonio. Jones is hoping to change that, and there appears to be an appetite for involvement among the San Antonio medical community, which has historically been at the forefront of this field.
A study about research on PTSD in the military population by the European Journal of Psychotraumatology identified the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio as the most prolific contributor to research in this domain. UT Health San Antonio hosts four of the five most productive authors in the discipline, including the most prominent one, Dr. Alan Peterson.
After 21 years of active duty in the U.S. Air Force, Peterson started studying combat-related PTSD as a clinical psychologist at UTHSCSA.
When he arrived in 2005, there had been no clinical trials that looked at how to treat combat-related PTSD. That soon changed with his involvement in the creation of the South Texas Research Organizational Network Guiding Studies and Resilience (STRONG STAR) consortium at UT Health San Antonio, a Department of Defense (DOD)-funded effort that at its start took on 14 projects focused on PTSD in service members.
He said STRONG STAR’s presence is one reason San Antonio has become a leader in PTSD research involving military personnel — the group has been a part of approximately 35 clinical trials since its founding.
The consortium will soon begin a DOD-funded clinical trial on MDMA, a psychedelic drug commonly known as ecstasy. He hopes that the results of the trial will be helpful, but he believes psychedelic treatment combined with evidence-based cognitive behavioral trauma-focused therapies is the best way to treat PTSD.
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“We need to figure out how we potentially combine these with an already established effective therapy, and it’s not just doing both, but doing both in a very careful, thoughtful perspective,” Peterson said.
Psychedelic drugs, especially ibogaine, have garnered attention both in Texas and nationally. In March, state officials announced that Texas would launch a $50 million research program focused on developing ibogaine clinical trials to treat PTSD. The following month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to speed up reviews of psychedelic drugs, including ibogaine.
For Peterson, experimental treatments using psychedelic drugs should still be approached with caution.
“There’s lots of what I would call hype that’s out there,” Peterson said. “We’re trying to be careful that it doesn’t get ahead of the science.”
Peterson has been successful in securing funding for furthering science on both the psychedelic frontier and on other areas of PTSD treatment, largely through DOD grants. He says he’s cracked the code on DOD funding, but he’s still working toward figuring out VA-funded clinical trials, which Jones highlighted in her letter.
“Compared to a lot of VAs around the country, the South Texas VA has not been as actively involved in research,” Peterson said. “There’s incredible potential here, from my perspective, it’s untapped at this point.”
Unlike the DOD, the VA does not award funding directly to outside universities or researchers, so when grant proposals are accepted by the VA, all investigators on a project must obtain an appointment from a local VA for the duration of the research. Peterson held one of these temporary positions while working on research with veterans previously, and he is hoping to secure another one as he applies for VA-funded grants.
VA-funded projects are also geared towards veterans who have retired from active combat, which Peterson says is part of the need for San Antonio to be involved in both VA-and DOD-funded clinical research.
“What works for veterans may or may not work for active duty military,” Peterson said. “They are different populations, and some treatments work just as well with all of them, and some don’t.”
Peterson and his team will soon submit 27 grant proposals, so it’s possible future clinical trials could come to San Antonio, just as Jones wishes.
“San Antonio is one of the largest veteran communities in the nation, lots of opportunities for research,” Peterson said. “We need to get the support we need from all the leaders at the local VA to support our work in this area.”
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