Veterans & PTSD - psilocybin legislation
Veterans die by suicide at nearly twice the rate of the general population. PTSD is one of the reasons why. The therapies available today help many people, and they fail many others. Veterans have been saying so for years. In Lansing, one bill would give some of them another option.
What House Bill 4686 does
State Representative Mike McFall of Hazel Park introduced House Bill 4686 on June 25, 2025, with six co-sponsors. The bill adds a single section to Michigan's Public Health Code. Under it, a person is not in violation of state laws against creating, manufacturing, possessing, or using psilocybin or psilocin if all of the following are true:
- They are 18 or older
- They have a medical record documenting a PTSD diagnosis
- They possess no more than two ounces of a substance containing psilocybin or psilocin
- The substance is for personal use only
That is the whole bill. Two pages.
What it does not do
HB 4686 does not legalize psilocybin in Michigan. It does not create dispensaries, licenses, or a regulated program like Oregon's. It does not change the law for anyone outside the group it defines, and it changes nothing at the federal level, where psilocybin remains Schedule I. The bill does one thing: it removes state criminal penalties for Michiganders with diagnosed PTSD who grow or possess small amounts of their own medicine.
McFall has framed it as protection. People with PTSD who turn to psilocybin are doing so now, quietly, carrying legal risk on top of the condition they are trying to treat. McFall named the people he has in mind: veterans, first responders, survivors of violence and trauma. He called the bill a targeted, responsible step, arguing that when evidence shows something helps and people are already turning to it, the state should not be penalizing them for it.
How we got here
The first version of this bill was House Bill 5980, introduced in September 2024 with two co-sponsors and referred to the House Criminal Justice Committee. It never received a hearing. When the legislative session ended, the bill died with it.
McFall reintroduced the measure in June 2025 as HB 4686, this time with six co-sponsors and a veteran at the podium. Michael G. Smith Jr., a retired U.S. Army Sergeant First Class, stood with McFall at the announcement and described his own experience: he found more relief from microdosing psilocybin than from all the talk therapy the VA offered him, and he says he tried everything they had.
His story is not unusual. It is just rarely told at a press conference in Lansing.
The federal government is studying the same question
In January 2024, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced it would fund research into psilocybin and MDMA as treatments for PTSD and depression in veterans. That was the first time the VA had funded psychedelic research since the 1960s. In December 2024, it funded its first study, an MDMA-assisted therapy trial for veterans with PTSD and alcohol use disorder, run by researchers affiliated with Brown and Yale.
The evidence behind that shift is specific. Johns Hopkins researchers found that psilocybin therapy, paired with supportive counseling, eased depression symptoms for up to twelve months. In a peer-reviewed trial published in Nature Medicine, 86 percent of participants receiving MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD achieved a clinically meaningful benefit. The Heroic Hearts Project, a veterans organization, reports preliminary findings that more than 80 percent of veterans experienced improvement in PTSD symptoms after a single psychedelic program.
Since then the pace has picked up. Compass Pathways completed two positive Phase 3 trials of psilocybin therapy for treatment-resistant depression, and in April 2026 the FDA granted the program a rolling review with priority status. An approval decision could come as early as 2027.
Michigan's own legislators have taken notice. In 2024, state lawmakers sent a letter to Congress, the Department of Defense, and the VA urging them to prioritize research into psychedelics for psychological trauma from military service.
To be clear about the state of the science: no psilocybin product is FDA-approved for any condition, the strongest clinical results so far are in depression rather than PTSD, the FDA declined to approve MDMA-assisted therapy in 2024 and asked for more data, and the VA discourages veterans from self-medicating. Those cautions are real. So is the direction of the evidence, and so are the veterans who are not waiting for Washington to finish deliberating.
Where the bill stands
HB 4686 sits in the House Families and Veterans Committee. It has not received a hearing. Its predecessor died the same way, quietly, without a vote. If this session ends without action, this bill dies too.
Status current as of September 2026.
Bills do not pass because they deserve to. They pass because constituents push.
If you live in Michigan, find your state representative and ask them to support House Bill 4686 and to give it a hearing. If you are a veteran with a story, tell it. Lawmakers hear from lobbyists every day. They remember the people they represent.
Every September on the Diag, we make room for this conversation. The rest of the year, it belongs in Lansing.