Expanding Minds – The Assembly

SSDP was mentioned in The Assembly’s article discussing how North Carolina has been part of a national movement to broaden the use of MDMA to treat post-traumatic stress disorder and quoted SSDP’s Gina Giorgio.

Last year, the Health House Standing Committee of the N.C. General Assembly approved the Breakthrough Therapies Research and Advisory Act unanimously, which would allocate $5.4 million to support two psychedelic medicine studies in our state, one for MDMA and one for psilocybin. The bill is in limbo until the state budget is approved, and it’s likely to be addressed in the 2025 legislative session. Gina Giorgio, the director of strategy and development at Students for Sensible Drug Policy and the founder of the NC Psychedelic Policy Coalition, was a driving force in the bill’s creation.

“I still think that a lot of this comes down to proper education about what psychedelics are,” said Giorgio. “We’re trying to fit this newer type of therapy into a western clinical model that I don’t think has supported people’s mental health and healing journey in this way prior.”

Read the article here.