The president offered FDA approval for accelerated research of the psychedelic ibogaine to treat anxiety and depression by text, podcaster Joe Rogan told reporters Saturday.
“It was literally that quick,” he said, standing alongside Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Americans for Ibogaine CEO W. Bryan Hubbard as the president signed a related executive order in the Oval Office on Saturday.
Rogan joined Trump at the White House as he signed the order that directs the FDA to speed up reviewing the drug and other psychedelics.
The order “will accelerate access to treatments for patients with serious mental illness,” the White House’s fact sheet released Saturday claimed. It also requires the FDA “to establish a pathway for eligible patients to access investigational psychedelic drugs, including ibogaine compounds, that are under FDA review and that have met basic safety requirements.”
Rogan: I sent Trump that information. The text message came back, "Sounds great, you want FDA approval?" pic.twitter.com/V1R4eFzaj9
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 18, 2026
“I want to tell everybody how this happened. I sent President Trump some information,” Rogan told reporters Saturday. “We have a gigantic opiate problem in this country, obviously. In 2024, more than 80,000 people died of overdoses. It’s a horrible number. And there’s more than five million people that are addicted to opiates right now in this county.”
He continued, “With one dose of Ibogaine, more 80% of people are free of that With two doses, it’s more than 90%. I send him that information. The text message came back, ‘Sounds great. Do you want FDA approval? Let’s do it!’ It was literally that quick.”
Rogan is far from the only person promoting ibiogaine to treat veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression. In 2024 Stanford Medicine researchers reported when combined with magnesium to protect the heart, the drug “safely and effectively reduces PTSD, anxiety and depression and improves functioning in veterans with TBI.”
In 2018 the American Pain Society published a report that studied the rate at which military veterans in the United States are prescribed opioids for chronic pain. Among other things, the organization found “that veterans reporting any loss of consciousness, disorientation or confusion and post-traumatic
amnesia after a TBI were at greater risk for receiving short as well as long-term opioid therapy, compared with veterans not reporting TBI sequelae.”
Further, opiates may contribute to prolonging the veteran’s symptoms. “PTSD and depression were both significantly associated with subsequent long-term opioid therapy, and to a lesser extent, short-term opioid therapy,” the report also reads.
Per the University of Virginia Division of Medical Toxicology, Ibogaine also comes with risks, including bradycardia (an unusually slow resting heart rate), seizures, nausea and vomiting, as well as potentially adverse psychological effects.
