Texas Legislative Leaders Seek to Bypass
Process Approved for Psychotropic Drug

Capitol Inside
April 1, 2026

The Texas Legislature's top two leaders revealed on Tuesday that the state will establish its own research and testing initiative for the psychoactive alkaloid ibogaine after a request for outside proposals failed to produce a single candidate that could meet the rigorous standards that are currently in place.

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dustin Burrows announced in a statement on social media that the state would take the lead on clinical trials for ibogaine with the assistance of medical professionals from Texas. The Texas power duo said they decided to have the state direct the effort after the Texas Health and Human Services Commssion came up empty in the solicitation of proposals from private drug companies to direct the effort with the help of $50 million in matching funds that lawmakers approved in regular session in 2025.

"We intend to fully fund this program, and will work in partnerships with our great medical research teams in Texas to conduct the research," Burrows and Patrick said in a statement that they issued together on X.

The ibogaine trials are a product of Senate Bill 2308, which GOP State Senator Tan Parker of Flower Mound conceived and guided through the upper chamber in the regular session in 2025. The initiative was the brainchild of Rick Perry - the former Republican governor and cabinet member who served as President Donald Trump's first secretary of energy in his debut term.

The Texas legislation - the first of its kind at the state level - has the long-term goal of having ibogaine approved by the FDA for the treatment of substance abuse and addiction, post-traumatic stress syndrome, head injuries and other maladies.

But neither Patrick or Burrows elaborated on whether they had the actual authority to put the state in charge of ibogaine research and testing without the approval of the House and Senate and Governor Greg Abbott, who signed SB 2308 into law last year. While the Legislative Budget Board presumably could give its blessings redirection of the matching funds, it might require an additional piece of legislation that effectively cancels the process that lawmakers endorsed in Austin and overhauls it in the manner the House and Senate leaders here envision now.

SB 2308 authorized the HHSC to advertise for proposals for the ibogaine trials from consortiums that would include institutions of higher education, hospitals and private pharmaceutical companies that would conduct the actual testing. But the Texas legislative leaders didn't specify whether they had a way to bypass the Senate bill's relatively strict requirements for the establishment of the testing process for the hallucinogenic drug that's derived from the plant-derived compound.

While Perry championed the ibogaine push in Austin with assists from U.S. Rep. Morgan Luttrell of Houston and twin brother Marcus Luttrell, a former combat veteran, the former governor's stories about his own experience on ibogaine could be a detriment to the legislation's central objectives.

According to a fascinating story in the New York Times in August, Perry signed up for ibogaine treatment at a clinic in the Mexican border city of Tijuana where it's legal. Perry hallucinated for more than 12 hours, the NYT reported, feeling like he was "hurtling through space" at times and seeing things that weren't real despite the cover of an eye mask.

Perry confronted the Devil during the tripping episode in the border town. “Satan, get behind me,” Perry told a "figure with horns" that he thought he saw before his eventual re-emergence in reality.

SB 2308 cleared both chambers with overwhelming support s last spring. Five Patrick allies - including GOP State Senators Brent Hagenbuch of Denton, Joan Huffman of Houston, Robert Nichols of Jacksonville and Kevin Sparks of Midland - opposed the bill on its initial trip through the east wing. Texas Tech University Chancellor Brandon Creighton was still a Senate member for the GOP when he voted no on the ibogaine measure as well last year. Huffman was the only members of that group who supported the conference committee report on SB 2308 before it headed to Abbott's desk.

Republican State Reps. Brian Harrison of Waxahachie and David Lowe of Fort Worth voted against the ibogaine proposal on its first trip through the House before turning thumbs down on the conference report as well.

more to come ...