Former trade minister Andrew Robb has become an advocate for psychedelic therapy. 

Former Liberal Party director and trade minister Andrew Robb has been dealing with diurnal depression for over 50 years. He has joined the board of the charity Mind Medicine Australia, which advocates for the local approval of psychedelic therapies that are currently available in Canada, the US, Switzerland and Israel.

“I have tried to explore what it actually does. And there's no doubt that it is quite well agreed that it increases the activity in the brain,” Mr Robb said in a recent interview with the ABC.

He is well aware of the apparent irony of a conservative politicians advocating for psychedelic therapies that are currently illegal. 

“I understand that because it had such a bad rap in the 60s, the misuse of these drugs for recreational purposes had a very bad effect,” he said.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) is looking at allowing psychedelics like magic mushrooms (with the active ingredient psilocybin) or ecstasy (MDMA) to be used in a psychiatric clinic setting. 

The is expected to hand down a decision in April on whether psilocybin and MDMA should be downgraded from schedule 9 (prohibited substance) to schedule 8 (controlled drug). In its interim decision earlier this year, the TGA appeared to reject the idea.

Mr Robb says Australia should approve “limited amounts [to be] available for the medical profession to use in a controlled medical situation to alleviate mental health diseases”.

“What we've seen is over 150 clinical trials take place. In the last 20 years, we've seen over 3,000 people, patients, involved in these trials, and the results are spectacular,” Mr Robb said.

“They're getting up to 60 to 80 per cent remission. This is not relief, this is remission.

“Now, those sort of results are not possible [with current medications] … At best, 30 per cent of people in Australia will respond to the antidepressants. So you get 70 per cent who are not responding. And we need to have alternatives.”

Mr Robb remains deeply opposed to magic mushrooms and MDMA for recreational use. 

The College of Psychiatrists is currently opposed to psychedelic therapy. 

“We need to do the science to get the safety and get the efficacy to make sure that that's right,” college president John Allan told reporters.

“The history of psychiatry is littered with things that were great white hopes or great promises, that have actually turned out to not be so.

“There aren't any countries that I would think have reasonable rules that actually have gone to this level of detail of deregulation.

“So I think it's really important to note that clinics that might be operating elsewhere are probably operating under an experimental rule or outside of those particular rules.

“Drugs actually cause a lot of problems. That is a big problem facing prescribers at the moment, a big problem facing addiction medicine psychiatrists around what to do about that incredible misuse of those drugs that are on [schedule 8].

“What I'm trying to say is, I don't think we need to set up another one of those [drugs] just yet.”