RN Collins has written a series of 20 new articles for cannabis law report on 2026 Psychedelics & Legal Issues.

This is the 10th in a series of 20

Veteran Access to State-Licensed Psychedelic Services: A Legal Gap at the Intersection of Federal Employment, Security Clearances, and State Regulation

Cannabis Law Report Policy Reform / Governance / Oversight Series

Abstract

Veterans constitute the primary political constituency driving federal psychedelic legislative activity, from the NDAA 2024 clinical trials provision to the PATH Caucus’s Innovative Therapies Centers of Excellence Act to Texas’s $50 million ibogaine research investment. Yet veterans who are also federal employees or hold active security clearances face structural legal barriers — rooted in federal drug-free workplace policy, security clearance adjudicative guidelines, and VA clinical practice — that prevent them from accessing the state-licensed psilocybin services that veteran advocacy has helped create. No federal legislation, no state statute, and no agency guidance resolves this conflict. This article identifies the specific legal mechanisms generating the barrier, assesses their current enforcement posture, surveys the absence of state-level remediation, and proposes four legislative and regulatory pathways to resolution.

Keywords: psychedelics; psilocybin; veterans; federal employment; security clearances; drug-free workplace; Schedule I; SEAD 4; EO 12564; Oregon Measure 109; Colorado Proposition 122

I. Introduction: The Political Irony of Psychedelic Reform

The political architecture of federal psychedelic reform has been built substantially on veteran suffering and veteran advocacy. Representative Morgan Luttrell, the former Navy SEAL who authored the landmark NDAA 2024 psychedelics provision, has publicly disclosed his own experience receiving ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT treatment abroad — a disclosure that has made his legislative advocacy both credible and politically potent.¹ Representative Dan Crenshaw, a combat veteran who lost his right eye in Afghanistan, introduced the standalone Douglas “Mike” Day Psychedelic Therapy to Save Lives Act, the predecessor to the NDAA provision.² Former Texas Governor Rick Perry, a veteran of the United States Air Force, chairs Americans for Ibogaine and was the driving force behind Texas’s $50 million ibogaine research investment.³ Navy SEALs Marcus Luttrell and Marcus Capone have become leading public advocates for psychedelic treatment of combat-related PTSD.⁴ The coalition that secured the Innovative Therapies Centers of Excellence Act’s endorsements from the American Legion, the Disabled American Veterans, the VFW, and the Wounded Warrior Project is a coalition that speaks in veteran voices.⁵

The political irony is acute. The very population whose public advocacy has done more than any other to normalize the case for federal psychedelic research is, in a significant subset, legally prohibited from accessing the state-licensed psilocybin services that advocacy has helped generate. Veterans who are federal employees — a population numbering in the hundreds of thousands across every cabinet department and independent agency — are subject to federal drug-free workplace policies that classify psilocybin as an illegal drug regardless of state law, regardless of clinical context, and regardless of whether the session was conducted at a licensed Oregon service center or a licensed Colorado healing center. Veterans who hold active security clearances face an additional layer of exposure: the National Security Adjudicative Guidelines identify illegal drug use as a potential disqualifying condition for continued clearance eligibility, and psilocybin’s Schedule I status means that state licensure provides no adjudicative protection. Veterans receiving care through the VA face a third exposure: clinical guidelines that strongly discourage Schedule I substance use, combined with medical records systems that document disclosures in ways that may persist in a veteran’s treatment record indefinitely.

These are not remote or hypothetical concerns. The intersection of veteran federal employment, security clearance obligations, and state-licensed psilocybin access is a structural legal conflict that the political architecture of psychedelic reform has so far obscured rather than resolved. The congressional provisions, state statutes, and agency guidance that govern the landscape have collectively failed to address it. This article examines each layer of that conflict in turn.

II. The Federal Employment Conflict

A. Executive Order 12564 and the Drug-Free Federal Workplace

The foundational legal instrument creating the federal employment barrier is Executive Order 12564, Drug-Free Federal Workplace, issued by President Reagan on September 15, 1986, and codified in implementing regulations at 5 C.F.R. Part 792.⁶ The Order declares that the use of illegal drugs by federal employees, whether on or off duty, is contrary to the efficiency of the federal service and establishes a framework requiring agencies to test employees in “sensitive positions” for illegal drug use. The Order’s definition of “illegal drugs” incorporates the Controlled Substances Act schedules directly — and psilocybin, which remains a Schedule I controlled substance under 21 U.S.C. § 812, is accordingly an “illegal drug” under EO 12564 regardless of whether it was administered at a licensed Oregon Psilocybin Services facility operating fully within Oregon law.

The Department of Health and Human Services has issued Mandatory Guidelines for Federal Workplace Drug Testing Programs, most recently updated in the base guidelines on October 12, 2023, with testing panel revisions effective July 7, 2025, which govern the technical standards for federal employee drug testing.⁷ These Guidelines specify the controlled substances for which federal agencies must test, the collection and laboratory procedures that govern testing, and the consequences of confirmed positive results. Psilocybin is not currently among the substances for which the HHS Mandatory Guidelines require mandatory federal workplace testing — the standard panel covers marijuana metabolites, cocaine, opiates, amphetamines, phencyclidine, MDMA, and, as of July 7, 2025, fentanyl and its metabolite norfentanyl. However, the absence of psilocybin from the mandatory testing panel does not insulate a federal employee from disciplinary consequences for disclosed psilocybin use: the EO 12564 prohibition on illegal drug use operates independently of the drug testing panel, and agencies are not precluded from taking adverse action based on disclosed or otherwise known Schedule I drug use that falls outside the standard panel.⁸

B. The Practical Exposure for Veteran Federal Employees

The federal workforce includes a disproportionate share of veterans. Federal law governing veterans’ preference in federal hiring, codified at 5 U.S.C. § 2108 et seq., has produced a federal civilian workforce in which veterans constitute a substantial portion of agency employees across every major federal department.⁹ Veterans drawn to federal employment by service-connected missions — at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and related agencies — are particularly concentrated in positions that are classified as “sensitive” under EO 12564’s framework, subjecting them to drug testing requirements.

The practical exposure is direct. A veteran employed as a GS-12 program analyst at a VA regional office who schedules an appointment at a licensed Oregon psilocybin service center for a single supervised session does so while subject to federal drug-free workplace policy that classifies that session as illegal drug use. If that employee is randomly selected for drug testing the following week and tests positive for psilocin — psilocybin’s active metabolite — the positive result will be reported to the agency’s Medical Review Officer and may trigger adverse employment action up to and including termination. If the employee discloses the session to a supervisor in connection with a request for leave, that disclosure may independently trigger a fitness-for-duty evaluation or adverse action referral. Oregon law authorizes the session; federal law prohibits it; no provision of either system mediates the conflict.

The Office of Personnel Management has not issued guidance addressing whether state-licensed therapeutic psilocybin use constitutes a mitigating circumstance under federal drug-free workplace policy, and no federal agency has publicly adopted a policy treating state-licensed psilocybin services differently from unregulated Schedule I drug use.¹⁰ In the absence of such guidance, the default legal framework exposes veteran federal employees to adverse employment consequences for engaging in state-licensed activity that the federal government’s own research apparatus — through the NDAA 2024 clinical trials provision — has identified as potentially therapeutic.

III. The Security Clearance Conflict

A. The National Security Adjudicative Guidelines

Veterans who hold active security clearances face an additional and distinct legal exposure. Security clearance adjudications in the United States are governed by Security Executive Agent Directive 4 (SEAD 4), issued by the Director of National Intelligence and effective June 8, 2017, which incorporates the National Security Adjudicative Guidelines as their operative standard.¹¹ The Guidelines establish thirteen adjudicative criteria — each representing a category of conduct or condition that security officials must evaluate when granting, continuing, or revoking security clearances.

Guideline H, Drug Involvement and Substance Misuse, is the directly applicable criterion. The Guidelines identify as a potentially disqualifying condition “any illegal drug use” — with no exception for substances that are legal under state law but illegal under federal law.¹² The standard federal clearance application, Standard Form 86 (SF-86), Questionnaire for National Security Positions, asks applicants to disclose illegal drug use within specified lookback periods: typically seven years for most drug use questions, with no time limitation for certain circumstances including involvement in drug trafficking.¹³

B. The Schedule I Problem

Psilocybin’s Schedule I status under federal law means that participation in a state-licensed psilocybin session constitutes “illegal drug use” for purposes of Guideline H, regardless of the clinical context, the state license, or the therapeutic intent. A veteran clearance holder who participates in a single supervised session at a licensed Colorado healing center — fully compliant with Colorado law, documented in Colorado’s SB 25-297 data collection system, facilitated by a DORA-licensed facilitator — has nonetheless engaged in conduct that is disqualifying under the National Security Adjudicative Guidelines as currently written.

The mitigating conditions under Guideline H — which include factors such as remoteness of the conduct, evidence of rehabilitation, and the circumstances surrounding use — do not include state legal authorization as a mitigating factor. This is in contrast to the treatment framework applicable to alcohol use disorder: under Guideline G, Alcohol Consumption, actively seeking treatment for a recognized alcohol problem is an express mitigating condition at ¶ 23(b), and the Guidelines provide that a pattern of acknowledgment and demonstrated modified consumption or abstinence weigh in the clearance holder’s favor.¹⁴ No analogous mitigating provision exists under Guideline H for therapeutic Schedule I substance use, even when administered by a licensed professional in a licensed facility.

C. Disclosure Obligations and Polygraph Exposure

The clearance conflict has a second, distinct dimension involving self-disclosure obligations and polygraph examinations. Clearance holders are generally obligated to self-report material changes in their circumstances — including new foreign contacts, financial difficulties, and, in many agency-specific policies, illegal drug use — between periodic reinvestigation cycles. A veteran who uses state-licensed psilocybin services and accurately reports that use on a subsequent SF-86 or in a polygraph examination has formally disclosed a Guideline H disqualifying condition. A veteran who does not disclose that use and is later identified — through a random drug test, a medical record, a VA treatment note, or an incidental investigation — may face consequences not only for the underlying drug use but for the concealment. The self-disclosure obligation, combined with the absence of any mitigating provision for state-licensed therapeutic use, creates a structural bind in which honesty and silence both carry risk.

IV. The VA Treatment Relationship Conflict

A. VA Clinical Guidance and Disclosure Consequences

Veterans receiving mental health care through the VA are subject to a third layer of exposure that is distinct from both federal employment and security clearance consequences. The VA’s institutional posture toward psychedelic substances — even as the agency funds research into MDMA-assisted therapy — is one of clinical discouragement of self-directed use. The December 3, 2024 VA press release announcing the agency’s first psychedelic research funding since the 1960s explicitly stated that the VA “strongly discourages self-medicating with psychedelics,” a characterization that applies equally to a veteran who has received treatment at a licensed Oregon service center and a veteran who has used unregulated substances.¹⁵

The VA’s electronic health record system, now substantially transitioned to the Oracle Health (formerly Cerner) platform through the Electronic Health Record Modernization initiative, creates a documented record of patient disclosures that persists in the veteran’s longitudinal treatment file. A VA primary care provider or mental health clinician who is told by a veteran patient that they have recently undergone a psilocybin session at a licensed Oregon service center is not governed by a professional framework that treats this disclosure as clinically neutral. The provider may document the disclosure as “illicit substance use” or “Schedule I drug use” in the clinical record, may flag it as a safety concern in the context of concurrent medications, and may refer the veteran for substance use evaluation — all of which generate clinical record entries that can affect the veteran’s ongoing treatment relationship, VA disability rating determinations, and, if the records are disclosed in connection with a security clearance reinvestigation, clearance status.¹⁶

B. The HIPAA Gap

Federal health privacy law provides limited protection in this context. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), 42 U.S.C. § 1320d et seq., governs the disclosure of protected health information (PHI) by covered entities, including VA medical facilities. VA records documenting psilocybin use are generally protected from voluntary disclosure without patient authorization. However, HIPAA’s coverage has important limitations in the veteran context: VA records may be disclosed to law enforcement agencies under specific circumstances, to the Department of Defense in connection with fitness-for-duty evaluations, and pursuant to court orders — including, potentially, in connection with security clearance proceedings in which a veteran has authorized review of medical records on the SF-86.¹⁷ The HIPAA protections that would ordinarily shield a patient’s mental health disclosures from employer access are structurally weaker for veterans whose treatment records are held by a federal agency and whose clearance applications authorize broad records review.

V. What the States Have Not Done

A. Survey of Oregon, Colorado, and New Mexico

None of the three states with operative psilocybin programs — Oregon, Colorado, or New Mexico — has enacted any statutory provision addressing the federal employment or security clearance conflict for veteran clients.

Oregon’s data collection and privacy framework, enacted through Senate Bill 303 (2023) and codified at ORS 475A.372–.374, requires service centers to collect demographic and safety data and directs Oregon Health & Science University to receive de-identified data for research purposes.¹⁸ The framework does not address the disposition of identifiable client records in the context of federal employer inquiries or security clearance proceedings. Oregon has no “shield law” analogous to state marijuana privacy statutes that would prohibit disclosure of OPS client records to federal employers absent a court order.

Colorado’s Senate Bill 25-297 (2025), which directed the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to collect de-identified data on natural medicine use from facilitators and healing centers, includes data de-identification requirements designed to protect individual client privacy in the context of research and public reporting.¹⁹ It does not address federal employer access to identified client records or the legal status of state-licensed psilocybin session records in the context of clearance adjudications. Colorado’s program statute, C.R.S. §§ 12-170-101 et seq., contains a savings clause acknowledging federal enforcement authority (C.R.S. § 12-170-111(k)) — an acknowledgment of the federal-state conflict that explicitly declines to resolve it.

New Mexico’s Medical Psilocybin Act, enacted as Senate Bill 219 in April 2025, creates the most medicalized access framework of the three states, limiting services to patients with qualifying conditions under clinician supervision.²⁰ Records generated in New Mexico’s program are more likely to qualify as protected health information under HIPAA than records generated by non-clinical Oregon or Colorado facilitators, providing a marginally stronger privacy baseline. However, New Mexico SB 219 contains no provision addressing the conflict between state medical psilocybin records and federal employment or security clearance disclosure obligations.

B. The Structural Limit of State Authority

The absence of state-level remediation reflects more than a drafting gap: it reflects the structural limits of state authority to resolve a conflict rooted in federal law. Federal drug-free workplace policy is an exercise of the federal government’s authority to regulate the conduct of its own employees. Security clearance adjudications are a function of the executive branch’s authority over classified information and national security determinations. VA clinical records are federal records. None of these legal frameworks is subject to preemption by state law, and states accordingly lack the legislative authority to resolve the federal employment, clearance, or VA dimensions of the barrier — even if their legislatures were inclined to act.²¹ Oregon can prohibit disclosure of state psilocybin program records to private employers; it cannot prevent a federal agency from accessing those records pursuant to a security clearance investigation authorized by a veteran’s own SF-86 consent. Colorado can de-identify research data; it cannot override EO 12564’s prohibition on illegal drug use by federal employees. This is inherently a federal question requiring a federal resolution.

VI. What Congress Has Not Done

A. The Research-Access Gap in Federal Legislation

The principal federal psychedelic legislative accomplishments of recent years — Section 723 of NDAA 2024, the PATH Caucus’s Innovative Therapies Centers of Excellence Act of 2025, and the VA’s first psychedelic research funding announcement — share a common structural characteristic: they create or fund research frameworks but contain no employment or clearance protections for veterans who access state-licensed services outside a clinical trial.²²

The NDAA 2024 provision directs the Secretary of Defense to establish a process for active duty service members to participate in clinical trials involving psychedelic substances. Within the clinical trial context, participants have a degree of institutional protection: their participation is sanctioned by the federal government, documented in IRB-approved research protocols, and subject to FDA oversight. A veteran participating in an NDAA-authorized DoD clinical trial is not using an illegal drug in the sense that EO 12564 contemplates — the trial is a federally authorized research activity. But that protection is narrow and specific: it does not extend to a veteran who, unable to access or qualify for a clinical trial, instead uses a state-licensed service center. The trial participant is protected; the state-licensed service recipient is not. Congress has created a narrow protected pathway while leaving the broader access pathway fully exposed.²³

B. The Cannabis Comparison

The cannabis context provides a useful but ultimately inapposite comparison. The Rohrabacher-Blumenauer amendment, incorporated into annual appropriations legislation, prohibits the Department of Justice from spending funds to prevent states from implementing their own medical cannabis laws.²⁴ This provision has been interpreted to provide limited protection for state-compliant medical cannabis dispensaries and patients from federal prosecution. However, it explicitly does not protect federal employees who use state-licensed cannabis: EO 12564 prohibits federal employee drug use independently of DOJ prosecution, and OPM has issued guidance confirming that the existence of state cannabis legalization does not exempt federal employees from federal drug-free workplace requirements.²⁵ The Rohrabacher-Blumenauer analogy thus illustrates the ceiling of what state-focused federal legislation can accomplish: protection from prosecution at the state program level does not translate into protection for individual federal employees whose conduct is regulated by a separate executive order framework.

No psychedelic equivalent of even the limited Rohrabacher-Blumenauer protection has been enacted. The DEA has not issued enforcement guidance deprioritizing prosecution of state-compliant psilocybin programs, as it has effectively done for state-compliant cannabis programs through prosecutorial forbearance. The PATH Caucus has not introduced legislation addressing federal employee or clearance holder access. No pending bill before Congress as of early 2026 resolves the conflict this article identifies.

VII. Proposed Remedies

The veteran access barrier is a structural conflict requiring targeted federal action. Four legislative and regulatory pathways — ranging from narrow executive action to broader statutory intervention — are available to policymakers.

A. Federal Drug-Free Workplace Carve-Out for State-Licensed Therapeutic Use

The most direct administrative remedy would be an amendment to the implementing regulations of EO 12564, at 5 C.F.R. Part 792, or a new OPM guidance document establishing that participation in a state-licensed psilocybin service program — in a jurisdiction where such programs are authorized and regulated by state law, and where the service is conducted at a licensed facility by a licensed facilitator — does not constitute “illegal drug use” for purposes of federal drug-free workplace policy. This approach would parallel the model adopted by several states that have enacted cannabis-specific employment protections providing that state-licensed cannabis use cannot be the basis for adverse employment action.²⁶

The administrative carve-out approach has two significant advantages: it can be implemented by executive action without congressional authorization, and it can be tailored to the specific licensed-program context without creating broader Schedule I exceptions. Its principal limitation is durability — an OPM guidance document issued under one administration can be rescinded by the next, providing less stable protection than a statutory amendment. A more durable version would amend EO 12564 directly or add a provision to the Civil Service Reform Act specifying that adverse action based solely on participation in a state-licensed psychedelic service program is prohibited.

B. Security Clearance Adjudicative Guideline Exception

The National Security Adjudicative Guidelines’ Guideline H should be amended to include state-licensed therapeutic psilocybin use as a mitigating condition, analogous to the existing mitigating provision under Guideline G that treats seeking treatment for alcohol use disorder as a factor weighing in the clearance holder’s favor rather than against them.²⁷ Under a reformed Guideline H, participation in a single or limited course of supervised psilocybin sessions at a licensed state facility, documented by the clearance holder and reviewed in the context of their overall adjudicative record, would be classified as a mitigating rather than disqualifying circumstance — reflecting the institutional judgment that a veteran who transparently disclosed state-licensed therapeutic psilocybin use presents no greater risk to national security than one who disclosed a course of VA-supervised ketamine infusions.

This reform requires action by the Security Executive Agent — the Director of National Intelligence — and the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, which administers the adjudicative guidelines. It does not require congressional authorization, though congressional direction through NDAA language could accelerate the process. The alcohol treatment analogy is directly applicable: the policy rationale for treating treatment-seeking as mitigating under Guideline G is that encouraging transparency and help-seeking behavior serves the security mission better than deterring disclosure. The same rationale applies to a veteran clearance holder who has pursued state-licensed psilocybin treatment for combat-related PTSD.

C. VA Clinical Guidance on Non-Adverse Documentation

The Department of Veterans Affairs should issue clinical guidance clarifying that disclosure of state-licensed psilocybin use to a VA provider will not be documented in a manner that is clinically or administratively adverse to the veteran’s treatment relationship, disability rating, or benefit eligibility. Under this guidance, VA providers who are informed of state-licensed psilocybin participation would document the disclosure factually but would not classify it as “illicit substance use” or refer the veteran for substance use evaluation solely on the basis of state-licensed therapeutic participation.

This reform can be implemented through clinical practice guidance issued by the Veterans Health Administration’s Office of Mental Health and Suicide Prevention, without requiring congressional action. The policy rationale is straightforward: veterans with PTSD and other combat-related conditions are precisely the population whose mental health treatment-seeking the VA is mandated to encourage, and a documentation framework that penalizes disclosure of state-licensed therapeutic activity structurally discourages treatment-seeking among veterans who fear adverse clinical or administrative consequences. The VA press release announcing the MDMA-assisted therapy research funding acknowledged that VA “strongly discourages self-medicating with psychedelics” — guidance that is clinically defensible for unregulated use but analytically distinguishable from participation in a licensed, regulated, facilitator-supervised state program.²⁸

D. State-Level Shield Law for Psilocybin Service Records

As a complement to federal remedies, states with operative psilocybin programs should enact “shield law” provisions prohibiting disclosure of identifiable client records from licensed psilocybin service centers to federal employers, federal agencies, and security clearance adjudicators absent a valid court order or the client’s express, contemporaneous written authorization. Oregon, Colorado, and New Mexico each maintain records of psilocybin service participation through their respective data collection frameworks; absent an affirmative prohibition on disclosure, those records are potentially accessible to federal employers through subpoena, security clearance investigation authorization, or other legal process.

Several states have enacted analogous shield laws for medical cannabis patient registry records, prohibiting disclosure of registry information to law enforcement absent a court order.²⁹ A psilocybin service record shield law would provide a structural barrier to the most foreseeable federal access pathway — the voluntary authorization for records review that veterans sign on the SF-86 — by requiring that any such authorization specifically identify psilocybin service records and by establishing that general medical records authorizations do not extend to state psilocybin program records. The limitation of this approach is that it cannot prevent a veteran from being required to self-disclose state-licensed psilocybin use on the SF-86 itself, which asks about illegal drug use regardless of whether records exist.

VIII. Conclusion

The veteran access barrier to state-licensed psychedelic services is not a theoretical concern anticipated by policy analysts ahead of its practical emergence. It is a structural legal conflict that exists today, in an operating legal landscape in which two states have licensed psilocybin service programs, hundreds of thousands of veterans are employed by the federal government or hold active security clearances, and no federal statute, executive order, or agency guidance resolves the contradiction between state-licensed therapeutic access and federal drug-free workplace, clearance, and VA clinical policy.

The political architecture of psychedelic reform has obscured this conflict rather than resolved it. The NDAA 2024 provision that Rep. Luttrell authored protects DoD clinical trial participants; it does not protect the far larger population of veteran federal employees who might seek access to state-licensed services. The VA’s groundbreaking MDMA research funding, announced in December 2024, advances the scientific case for psychedelic therapy; it does not protect the VA patient who discloses to their provider that they visited a licensed Oregon service center. The PATH Caucus’s Innovative Therapies Centers of Excellence Act, endorsed by every major veterans’ organization, creates a research infrastructure; it does not create a legal pathway for the veteran federal employee who wants to use that infrastructure’s eventual outputs.

The remedies proposed in this article — a federal drug-free workplace carve-out, a security clearance adjudicative guideline exception, VA clinical documentation guidance, and state shield laws — are each individually achievable without broad legislative restructuring. What they require is the political will to acknowledge that the veteran population whose advocacy has driven federal psychedelic reform forward is also the population most structurally constrained from benefiting from the programs that advocacy has created. Until federal law catches up to that reality, the promise of state-licensed therapeutic psilocybin access for veterans who served in the federal government’s most sensitive roles will remain exactly that — a promise, legally foreclosed.

Endnotes

¹ Marijuana Moment, House and Senate Reach Deal To Require Psychedelics Clinical Trials (Dec. 7, 2023), https://www.marijuanamoment.net/house-and-senate-reach-deal-to-require-psychedelics-clinical-trials-for-active-duty-military-service-members-under-defense-bill/ (identifying Rep. Luttrell as a veteran who has disclosed his own experience receiving ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT treatment in another country).

² Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP, Defending Psychedelics: Congress Includes Psychedelic Provisions in Defense Authorization Act (Jan. 2024), https://www.bradley.com/insights/publications/2024/01/defending-psychedelics-congress-includes-psychedelic-provisions-in-defense-authorization-act (describing the Douglas “Mike” Day Psychedelic Therapy to Save Lives Act introduced by Rep. Crenshaw as a predecessor to the NDAA 2024 provision).

³ Office of the Texas Governor, Governor Abbott Signs Ibogaine Treatment Research Law at Texas Capitol (June 11, 2025), https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-signs-ibogaine-treatment-research-law-at-texas-capitol; VETS, Texas Launches Largest Publicly-Funded Psychedelic Research Initiative in History (May 22, 2025), https://vetsolutions.org/news/press-release-texas-launches-largest-publicly-funded-psychedelic-research-initiative-in-history-with-50-million-investment-in-ibogaine/ (identifying former Governor Perry as Chairman of Americans for Ibogaine and a principal advocate for Texas SB 2308).

⁴ VETS, supra note 3 (identifying Marcus Luttrell and Marcus Capone as veteran advocates for ibogaine research in connection with Texas SB 2308).

⁵ U.S. Rep. Lou Correa Press Office, Correa, Bergman Introduce Bipartisan Legislation to Require VA Study Psychedelic Treatments for Veterans, https://correa.house.gov/news/press-releases/correa-bergman-introduce-bipartisan-legislation-to-require-va-study-psychedelic-treatments-for-veterans (listing American Legion, Disabled American Veterans, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, VFW, Veterans Mental Health Leadership Coalition, and Wounded Warrior Project as endorsers).

⁶ Exec. Order No. 12564, Drug-Free Federal Workplace, 51 Fed. Reg. 32889 (Sept. 15, 1986); see also 5 C.F.R. Part 792 (implementing OPM regulations for drug-free federal workplace programs). The Order defines “illegal drugs” by reference to the CSA schedules and prohibits use by federal employees on or off duty, with agencies required to test employees in sensitive positions.

⁷ U.S. Dep’t of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Mandatory Guidelines for Federal Workplace Drug Testing Programs, 88 Fed. Reg. 70768 (Oct. 12, 2023), https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/10/12/2023-21734/mandatory-guidelines-for-federal-workplace-drug-testing-programs (current base guidelines; prior version at 82 Fed. Reg. 7920 (Jan. 23, 2017)); see also SAMHSA, Mandatory Guidelines for Federal Workplace Drug Testing Programs — Authorized Testing Panels, 90 Fed. Reg. 4662 (Jan. 16, 2025), https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/01/16/2025-00425/mandatory-guidelines-for-federal-workplace-drug-testing-programs-authorized-testing-panels (adding fentanyl and norfentanyl to testing panels, effective July 7, 2025).

⁸ Id.; Exec. Order No. 12564, supra note 6 (the prohibition on illegal drug use by federal employees is a standalone employment conduct requirement independent of the drug testing panel; agencies are authorized to discipline employees for known illegal drug use regardless of whether the specific substance is included in the mandatory testing panel).

⁹ 5 U.S.C. § 2108 (defining veterans’ preference eligibility); U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Veterans Employment Data, https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/data-analysis-documentation/federal-employment-reports/veterans-report/ (reporting aggregate data on veteran representation in the federal civilian workforce).

¹⁰ U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Drug-Free Workplace, https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/employee-relations/drug-free-workplace/ (OPM drug-free workplace policy page; no guidance addressing state-licensed psychedelic therapeutic use as of early 2026). Cf. OPM guidance clarifying that state cannabis legalization does not exempt federal employees from EO 12564 requirements (establishing the interpretive framework applicable by analogy to psilocybin).

¹¹ Security Executive Agent Directive 4, National Security Adjudicative Guidelines (effective June 8, 2017) (SEAD 4), https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2018/02/f48/SEAD4_20170608.pdf (issued by the Director of National Intelligence pursuant to Exec. Order No. 13467, as amended; establishing uniform adjudicative criteria for all federal security clearance determinations).

¹² SEAD 4, supra note 11, Guideline H (Drug Involvement and Substance Misuse), ¶ 25 (listing as potentially disqualifying conditions any illegal drug use, including use of a substance that is illegal under federal law regardless of state authorization; and any drug involvement that creates a risk to national security based on judgment, reliability, or trustworthiness concerns).

¹³ Standard Form 86, Questionnaire for National Security Positions (Revised November 2016), https://www.opm.gov/forms/pdf_fill/SF86.pdf (Section 23, Drug Activity: asking about illegal drug use within the preceding seven years, with separate questions addressing drug trafficking, addiction, and drug involvement by family members; no exception for state-licensed therapeutic use).

¹⁴ SEAD 4, supra note 11, Guideline G (Alcohol Consumption), ¶ 23(b) (listing as a mitigating condition that “the individual acknowledges his or her pattern of maladaptive alcohol use, provides evidence of actions taken to overcome this problem, and has demonstrated a clear and established pattern of modified consumption or abstinence in accordance with treatment recommendations”); cf. Guideline H, ¶ 26 (mitigating conditions for drug involvement, which do not include seeking treatment for Schedule I substance use as an express mitigating factor analogous to the Guideline G alcohol treatment provision at ¶ 23).

¹⁵ U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, VA Funds First Study on Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy for Veterans (Dec. 3, 2024), https://news.va.gov/press-room/va-funds-first-study-on-psychedelic-assisted-therapy-for-veterans/ (announcing MDMA-assisted therapy research while stating that the VA “strongly discourages self-medicating with psychedelics”; confirming Brown University and Yale University as research partners; allocating up to $1.5 million over five years for the first VA-funded psychedelic study since the 1960s).

¹⁶ U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Electronic Health Record Modernization, https://www.ehrm.va.gov/ (describing the VA’s transition to the Oracle Health electronic health record platform; clinical documentation standards under the new system).

¹⁷ Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, 42 U.S.C. § 1320d et seq.; 45 C.F.R. §§ 164.502, 164.512 (permitting HIPAA-covered entity disclosure of PHI to law enforcement under specified circumstances; permitting disclosure pursuant to court orders; noting that patient authorization on SF-86 for records review may constitute a HIPAA-compliant authorization for release to federal security officials).

¹⁸ Or. Rev. Stat. §§ 475A.372, 475A.374 (SB 303 data collection framework; requiring licensed service centers to submit quarterly demographic and safety data to OHA; directing de-identified data sharing with Oregon Health & Science University and public aggregate reporting; no provision addressing federal employer or clearance official access to identifiable records).

¹⁹ Colorado General Assembly, SB25-297: Implementation of Colorado Natural Medicine Initiative, https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb25-297 (signed June 3, 2025; directing CDPHE to collect de-identified data from facilitators and healing centers; requiring de-identification before public reporting or research use; no shield law provision addressing federal employer access).

²⁰ New Mexico SB 219, Medical Psilocybin Act (2025), §§ 3(B), 4, https://www.nmlegis.gov/Sessions/25%20Regular/bills/senate/SB0219.HTML (medical model requiring clinician supervision for qualifying condition patients; records generated in a clinical setting more likely to constitute HIPAA-protected PHI than records from non-clinical Oregon or Colorado facilitators; no provision addressing federal employment or clearance disclosure obligations).

²¹ See McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316 (1819) (establishing the constitutional principle of federal supremacy in areas of legitimate federal authority); cf. Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1 (2005) (affirming federal authority under the Commerce Clause to prohibit intrastate marijuana cultivation notwithstanding state law authorization, a principle equally applicable to federal employment conduct requirements that intersect with state-authorized drug activity).

²² National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, Pub. L. No. 118-31, tit. VII, § 723, 137 Stat. 136 (2023) (directing DoD clinical trial process for active duty service members; not addressing federal employment or clearance consequences for veterans accessing state-licensed services outside a clinical trial); U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, supra note 15 (announcing research funding; not addressing employment or clearance consequences for VA patients who disclose state-licensed psilocybin use).

²³ Pub. L. No. 118-31 § 723, supra note 22 (clinical trial provision protects trial participants operating within the authorized DoD research framework; does not extend to veterans accessing state-licensed services independently; the distinction between trial-participant protection and general therapeutic access protection is not addressed in the legislative text or committee reports).

²⁴ Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, Pub. L. No. 117-328, div. BB, § 531 (Rohrabacher-Blumenauer amendment; prohibiting DOJ from spending funds to prevent states from implementing their own state medical cannabis laws; applying only to state medical cannabis programs, not to psychedelic programs).

²⁵ U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Drug-Free Workplace, supra note 10 (OPM has confirmed in prior guidance that state cannabis legalization does not affect federal employee drug-free workplace obligations, establishing the relevant interpretive framework by analogy; no equivalent psychedelic-specific guidance issued).

²⁶ See, e.g., Cal. Lab. Code § 12954 (prohibiting employer discrimination based on cannabis use outside the workplace); N.J. Stat. Ann. § 24:6I-52 (New Jersey employment protection for lawful cannabis use); Nev. Rev. Stat. § 613.333 (Nevada employment protection provisions) (collectively illustrating the state employment protection model that has been enacted for cannabis use and that could be adapted as a template for a federal psilocybin workplace carve-out applicable to state-licensed therapeutic use).

²⁷ SEAD 4, supra note 11, Guideline G, ¶ 22(b) (alcohol treatment mitigating condition); cf. Guideline H (absence of analogous mitigating provision for therapeutic Schedule I substance use under medical or state-licensed supervision, representing the primary structural gap that an adjudicative guideline amendment should address).

²⁸ U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, supra note 15.

²⁹ See, e.g., Or. Rev. Stat. § 475C.860 (Oregon cannabis patient registry confidentiality; prohibiting disclosure of registry information to law enforcement absent a court order); Colo. Rev. Stat. § 25-1.5-106.5 (Colorado medical marijuana registry confidentiality provisions) (illustrating the state shield law model for registry and program records that has been enacted in the cannabis context and that provides a legislative template for psilocybin service record protections).