WASHINGTON — Morgan Luttrell grew up on a Texas horse ranch during the drumbeat of “Just Say No” anti-drug messaging, survived multiple combat deployments as a Navy SEAL and was elected to Congress in 2022 as a staunchly conservative Republican.
All of which makes him an unlikely pitchman for psychedelic drugs.
Luttrell, 48, believes the drugs could help veterans struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries, and he has become an advocate for legalizing certain psychedelics for use in therapeutic situations.
Luttrell’s advocacy is borne of experience.
Having trouble coping with a return to civilian life after retiring from the military, Luttrell went to Mexico to be treated with psychedelics and credits the experience with saving his marriage.
“It was like 20 years of therapy in three days,” he said. “It allows your mind to cope with systematic issues that you’ve repressed.”
Everyone’s experience is different, he said, describing his treatment as an emotionally wrenching, “horrific” exorcism of internal demons.
He says he would never do it again, but it was like a massive rucksack had been lifted from his shoulders, and he found himself able to better cope with social situations.
“I was looking for a way to turn that off,” Luttrell said of his wartime mindset of hypervigilance. “I was hitting a mental barricade that wouldn’t allow me to do that. So the medication helped me see a path forward.”
While members of the public may equate psychedelics with drug abuse, Luttrell is adamant about the need to investigate potential avenues to address post-traumatic stress and brain-related ailments, particularly for fellow veterans.
“Psychedelics is another tool, an actionable tool, that can be used in the treatment of these cognitive issues,” he said.
Luttrell opposes legalizing recreational use of the drugs, and his conservative bona fides lend gravitas to his arguments for easing restrictions on medical applications of psychedelics.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is set to decide by August whether to approve using MDMA – commonly known as ecstasy – in treating post-traumatic stress disorder.
Luttrell was disappointed when an FDA advisory committee voted June 4 against approval. Some of the panel members said the treatment showed promise but cited concerns about the integrity of the study data.
The FDA is not required to follow the advisory committee’s lead, and other potential treatments are in the pipeline, but the vote was a significant setback for advocates.
“It was a hit in the knees,” Luttrell said.
Understanding brain science and trauma
Luttrell lives in Magnolia, outside Houston, with his wife and their two sons.
He’s known in Texas for his military service, along with his twin brother Marcus, who is also a former SEAL and the author of Lone Survivor, a first-person account of a harrowing ambush during a mission in the mountains of Afghanistan. A movie based on the book starred Mark Wahlberg as Marcus Luttrell.
Morgan Luttrell graduated from Willis High School about 50 miles north of Houston, then earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Sam Houston State University.
He enlisted in the Navy and served 14 years with multiple combat deployments, continuing for several years after a serious 2009 training accident. He and other SEALs were practicing quickly moving from a helicopter onto a ship off the coast of Virginia when the helicopter crashed, killing one and injuring eight.
Luttrell broke his back in six places, damaged his spinal cord and suffered a traumatic brain injury. He was unconscious for days and in a body cast for months.
His injuries eventually led to his retirement from the Navy in 2014, after which he went back to school to learn more about how the brain works and how to help veterans suffering from PTSD and brain injuries.
After receiving a master’s degree in applied cognition and neuroscience from the University of Texas at Dallas, Luttrell started working on a related doctoral program.
He was pulled away to work for then-U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, the former Texas governor who has credited the Luttrell brothers with informing him about psychedelic therapies.
Despite his intense experiences in uniform, Luttrell said he does not have post-traumatic stress disorder, but he did struggle to adjust to civilian life after leaving the military.
“When you’re a hypervigilant individual and you’re not in a hypervigilant space, it can cause problems,” Luttrell said.
Managing household duties does not require the same intensity as assaulting an enemy position, but it was difficult to ease off and be comfortable in everyday life, straining his relationships with his sons and wife.
“Nobody wants to be married to the guy that’s standing on the front line waiting for a round to [go] off,” he said. “And if you act like that all the time with a wife that was not in the military and doesn’t understand that, how does she cope with that and how do I explain it to her? Because it’s not a switch you can turn off.”
Luttrell had heard for years about the potential of psychedelic treatment but wasn’t comfortable with that approach.
But buddies he had served with and trusted shared positive stories about receiving the treatments in Mexico, and he eventually decided to try it.
The treatment started on a Friday night with Ibogaine, a naturally occurring psychoactive compound derived from a shrub in Central Africa. He said that lasted from Friday night into Saturday afternoon.
On Sunday, he took 5-MeO-DMT, which is found in a desert toad.
Luttrell said the medications, intended to push patients to confront and work through issues, helped him recognize that he was engaging with his wife and sons as if they were military teammates.
The therapy allowed him to wipe the slate clean, he said.
“I came home a humbled guy,” he said. “Which has profoundly changed my wife and I’s relationship.”
‘Something to fix the problem’
Luttrell said he is driven by the thousands of annual veteran suicides, many of which are rooted in traumatic brain injuries and PTSD. Still, he’s wary of loosening drug restrictions too much, prompting widespread abuse and a public backlash.
“I don’t want this thing to run away,” he said. “I am very strict about the guardrails.”
Another Houston-area Republican and former Navy SEAL, U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Humble, has touted the potential benefits of psychedelic treatments and worked on related legislation for years.
Luttrell and Crenshaw added a provision to the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act backing research into using substances such as MDMA, psilocybin (hallucinogenic mushrooms), Ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT to treat service members with PTSD or brain injuries.
Luttrell also has pushed to increase research funding for the Neurology Centers of Excellence and backed legislation to express congressional support for VA-funded research into psychedelic-assisted therapies to treat PTSD and depression.
The issue made for some strange bedfellows as Luttrell and Crenshaw teamed with House members from the left, including U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The New York Democrat cited evidence showing patients with treatment-resistant PTSD have responded to psychedelics.
“It’s not a joke,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “It’s not this marginal or fringe thing. It’s a really serious and important form of health care.”
Luttrell said he will continue pressing on all fronts to move the treatments forward.
“If you have something that you can put in place that will decrease the suicide rate in our veterans — and it transcends the veterans community — I’m all ears,” he said. “I’m just up here trying to bust my ass trying to figure out something to fix the problem.”