Certainly not the profile you’d expect for possibly the world’s largest pusher of a deadly street drug.
He is Shereef Elnahal and, as Under Secretary for Health at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), his customer base is the 16.2 million US military veterans comprising 6.2 percent of America’s adult civilian population. The drug he’s pushing is MDMA, more commonly known as Ecstasy, the mind-bending party substance that’s classified (along with its sister drugs heroin and LSD) as Schedule I, “A drug or other substance that has a high chance of being abused or causing addiction and has no FDA-approved medical use in the United States.”
But if Elnahal has his way, the FDA will approve Ecstasy for medical use.
Even though they’ve already disapproved it.
Friendships—and the love of Ecstasy—run deep.
On August 9, as reported by Freedom, a $30 million clinical trial conducted by drugmaker Lykos Therapeutics failed to persuade the FDA to approve moving Ecstasy off the street and into the doctor’s office.
Despite pressure to approve the drug, the FDA held firm, responding, “There are significant limitations to the data contained in the application that prevent the agency from concluding that this drug is safe and effective.”
The FDA’s response was a marvel of restraint, considering the nearly 100 percent adverse events experienced by the Ecstasy trial participants and the psychiatric sexual misconduct (“inappropriate therapist behavior”) that resulted in the temporary shutdown of the clinical trial altogether.
The resulting layoff of 75 percent of Lykos staff and the departure of its founder from the board in the wake of the FDA’s rejection was a testament to the degree to which the drugmaker was counting on a windfall once it was authorized to pump poison into the veins of our heroes.
VA Under Secretary Elnahal, too, was disappointed, remarking that he “did not feel awesome” when he heard the news.
But what’s it to Elnahal?
Well, Elnahal has a history of financial ties to Lykos’ partner in crime, Charles River Laboratories International, Inc., a pharmaceutical company heavily involved in Ecstasy research. And Elnahal, right up until nearly three months into his tenure over the health of our nation’s heroes, still had that financial interest.
And though Elnahal claims to have divested himself of Charles River Lab stock in September 2022, friendships—and the love of Ecstasy—run deep.
In other words: So what that the FDA disapproved Ecstasy?
So what that it’s a proven train wreck—an illegal drug that counts brain damage, kidney failure, psychosis, convulsions and death among its side effects and caused emergency room incidents to skyrocket more than 1,200 percent after it became the darling of all-night “rave” parties and dance clubs?
So what?
Ecstasy, Elnahal knows, does have one benefit—a big one. Money for his friends and a lucrative future for himself in the burgeoning psychedelic industry.
So, in October 2024, barely two months after the FDA rejected Ecstasy, Elnahal announced another “study” on the drug—this one conducted by the VA itself, to show the FDA that it was wrong back in August and that we can now start the party drug assembly line rolling without restraint.
Who’s funding this new $1.5 million study, you ask?
You and I, of course, via—who else?—the Department of Veterans Affairs.
That’s because Dr. Elnahal doesn’t love us or our nation’s veterans the way he does the folks at Lykos and Charles River Labs, his partners in psychedelics, who will be so grateful when he finally persuades the FDA to let them unleash the dogs of Ecstasy on our vets.
There’s likely even a lovely award for him in the private sector once this messy business with the VA is done.
Maybe even a gift basket laden with Schedule I drugs.
