Tim FerrissHow to Legalize Medical Psychedelics in Your Country — Tania de Jong on Australia’s Breakthrough
Tim Ferriss
News of the rescheduling 0:00
Tania de Jong describes the moment she learned Australia had rescheduled psilocybin and MDMA for medical use, a decision her husband announced in their kitchen. She initially assumed there was an error in the document, then realized it was real. Headlines soon arrived from around the world calling Australia the first country to make this move and a new leader in the field, a moment she calls surreal.
A blog post changes everything 1:03
De Jong traces the origin story back to December 2015, when she read Tim Ferriss's blog post describing a $100,000 donation to Johns Hopkins for a psilocybin depression study led by Roland Griffiths. That led her to Michael Pollan's New Yorker article "The Trip Treatment." She told her husband they needed to try this themselves, despite never having used alcohol, coffee, or any drugs before. They approached researcher Robin Carhart-Harris about joining a European trial but didn't qualify without a mental illness diagnosis, so they were eventually connected to a guide in the Netherlands.
A first, frightening journey 3:01
Before traveling to meet the guide, de Jong was so afraid of losing her mind that she wrote an email to her accountant listing her last wishes in case something happened to her. The guide, dressed in white robes, gave few clear answers about what would happen. The session itself brought an experience of feeling connected to self, others, and the planet, one that permanently changed how she saw nature, down to seashells and blades of grass. It took roughly a year to integrate, mostly by letting things settle rather than through formal therapy.
A second trip and a new purpose 7:01
A year later the couple returned to the same Dutch guide for an even higher dose, and the experience proved even more profound, convincing them something real and healing was happening. Having already founded five charities together, they began imagining applying these medicines to people facing homelessness, domestic violence, unemployment, disability, and depression, conditions they saw as rooted in trauma. They spent time meeting researchers worldwide, including Rick Doblin of MAPS, who in 2018 urged de Jong to start a charity in Australia. That charity, Mind Medicine Australia, launched in February 2019.
Petitioning the regulator 11:00
Mind Medicine Australia approached Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration, the rough equivalent of the FDA, asking to reschedule psilocybin and MDMA from prohibited substances (schedule 9) to controlled medicines (schedule 8) usable in clinical settings. Two applications were rejected at interim and final stages, with de Jong's husband refining each submission to address the regulator's stated concerns. A renewed public consultation drew over 13,000 submissions, with more than 98 percent in support, the largest number of public submissions ever received by the regulator for any rescheduling decision.
A national movement and trained clinicians 14:30
By this stage the campaign had grown into a large movement with over 30 volunteer-led chapters across Australia and New Zealand, supplied with templates and precedents for making submissions. Alongside public advocacy, Mind Medicine Australia had been training clinicians since 2021 through its certificate in psychedelic-assisted therapy, eventually training over 750 psychiatrists, psychologists, doctors, nurses, and other professionals, who added pressure through their own professional bodies.
Building a scientific advisory network 17:30
De Jong describes assembling roughly 75 advisors and allies, including David Nutt, Robin Carhart-Harris, and Roland Griffiths, largely through a 2018 conference in Wisconsin run by Bill Linton of Usona, where she spoke and sang. In 2022 the organization brought David Nutt to Australia for a tour, sponsored partly by herbal tincture and chocolate brands, with packed town halls in Byron Bay, Sydney, Canberra, and Melbourne, plus black-tie events with philanthropists in Sydney and Melbourne. She also recounts spending a week at Ram Dass's home in Maui, meditating and singing with him, and his memory of once giving his guru in India a large dose of LSD with no visible effect.
Meeting Ram Dass and Reaching Madison 30:00
Tania describes how time spent with Ram Dass, who went on to write and record prolifically after his own psychedelic experiences, helped open a door to Bill Linton and his circle in Madison, Wisconsin. There she met Robin, Roland, and others in that world, though David Nutt was not present at that time. That connection later proved crucial, since it was the year before Mind Medicine Australia was founded.
Launching Mind Medicine Australia 31:30
Tania invited David Nutt to fly to Australia and speak at the charity's launch on February 13th at the University of Melbourne, and the event was packed. She and her husband Peter became close friends with Nutt and his wife and have brought him back to Australia several times since.
The TGA Meeting and Vanessa's Story 32:01
In 2022, Mind Medicine Australia arranged for David Nutt to present to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, Australia's medicine regulator. The head of the TGA predicted 10 to 15 attendees, but 140 people showed up, many of them Department of Health and TGA staff. A woman named Vanessa spoke before Nutt about her husband Franco, a successful man with no prior history of depression who suddenly became severely ill, was hospitalized, and tried every conventional treatment without success. Because psychedelic therapy was illegal in Australia and he was too unwell to travel to a legal jurisdiction like the Netherlands, he never received it. Vanessa told the TGA she believed he might still be alive if he had. He died before treatment became available, leaving behind a young daughter.
The Rescheduling Decision 35:30
Despite skepticism from scientists and clinicians present at the meeting, pressure continued, and on February 3rd, 2023, Australia rescheduled MDMA and psilocybin for medical use, becoming the first country to do so. Tania describes learning the news at home with Peter and initially not believing it. Headlines worldwide soon called Australia a leader in the field. Months later, rules changed to let psychiatrists apply for authorized prescriber status through the TGA, submitting protocols covering dosing and practice settings for review by the TGA and an independent ethics committee.
Clinics, Patients, and Remission Rates 37:30
Australia now has more than 20 clinics, mostly run by clinicians trained through Mind Medicine Australia's certificate program, and roughly 400 patients have been treated. Remission rates run 60 to 80 percent, matching international trial results, with no serious adverse events reported. The split between the two medicines is roughly 70 percent MDMA to 30 percent psilocybin, since psychiatrists generally started with MDMA as the more manageable option, though psilocybin use is growing as it's researched for addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder, eating disorders, cluster headaches, and fibromyalgia. Tim adds that MDMA remains underestimated as a therapeutic tool precisely because it doesn't produce the dramatic visionary stories that circulate about other psychedelics.
Therapy Is Not One Size Fits All 43:30
Therapy accompanying the medicines isn't standardized in Australia; clinicians draw on different modalities, including internal family systems therapy, and increasingly emphasize nutrition and exercise afterward to prevent relapse into old habits like sugar or alcohol. Tania stresses that treatment isn't a cookie-cutter process, since dosing and therapeutic approach both need to fit the individual patient.
Exponential Growth in Prescribers and Training 46:01
Australia now has 120 authorized prescribing psychiatrists, up from just one or two at the start of 2024, and Mind Medicine Australia has trained 750 therapists compared to about 80 in the first year. Tania offers a conservative estimate that patient numbers could reach around 5,000 within a few years, while acknowledging this is still a small fraction of those who need treatment. Tim notes that in the United States, by contrast, Schedule One status makes clinical trials extremely costly, sometimes $15,000 per participant, which keeps study sizes small.
Data Collection and Building the Case 49:01
Mind Medicine Australia has funded an independent registry at the Australian National University, led with professor Paul Fitzgerald, to collect real-world evidence from patients before and after treatment, without influence from the charity itself. This data, expected to publish soon, is meant to demonstrate both safety and the striking gap between 10 to 15 percent remission rates for existing PTSD and depression treatments and the 60 to 80 percent rates seen with MDMA and psilocybin therapy, a comparison that matters greatly to government cost calculations.
Bringing Payers on Board 51:01
The organization has secured funding support from the Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and Medibank, Australia's largest health insurer, which now covers most treatment costs for eligible members. Tania explains that veterans were an early focus because more veterans die by suicide than in combat, echoing the strategy Rick Doblin and MAPS used in the United States. Rick Doblin's economic modeling suggested savings of over 100,000 US dollars per patient over a lifetime. Tania and Peter have also personally funded a patient support fund and have worked pro bono for eight years to help cover costs and reduce barriers to treatment.
Tania's Own Psilocybin and Syrian Rue Experience 53:33
Tania recounts her own first experience, guided by a Dutch facilitator who combined psilocybin with Syrian rue, a plant containing beta-carbolines such as harmine and harmaline that act as monoamine oxidase inhibitors, intensifying and extending the effects much like ayahuasca. The facilitator called this combination psilowca. Tania and Peter, both first-time drug users and self-described type A personalities, wanted the experience partly to practice letting go of control. The Syrian rue relaxed them first, then amplified visuals and sensations, by an estimated two to ten times, according to Tania. She describes tingling in her hands and feet within about thirty minutes, followed by a growing sense of fullness and then vivid kaleidoscopic colors and shapes, while Peter lay separately on a mattress, following a protocol of no verbal contact between them during the experience.
Syrian Rue And Dose Sensitivity 59:33
The conversation returns to Syrian rue, a plant used alongside psilocybin that intensifies the experience so much less mushroom is needed. The guest explains that combining it with mushrooms meant a dose of around 1.5 grams could match what would otherwise take 3.5 to 4.5 grams, and using less this way seems to reduce the chance of a painful next-day headache. The guest recalls a session with roughly 2.5 to 3 grams of dried mushroom guided by someone who did use Syrian rue, followed by a later session with a US guide who did not, which felt less powerful though still good. Quoting Aldous Huxley's line about the doors of perception never closing again, the guest says the experience permanently changed access to transcendental states through meditation and singing, and considers it the greatest gift received, even though Syrian rue can cause nausea for some people.
Why Headaches Happen In Beginners 1:02:00
The discussion turns to why headaches occur more often in people new to psilocybin. Someone unfamiliar with the substance often has no idea what they are feeling, so when a facilitator asks if they want to boost the dose, they say yes without knowing whether they should, and this pattern can escalate from three grams to six, nine, or even twelve. At that point the odds of a headache rise sharply. It is also noted that mothers and primary caregivers frequently need higher doses because they are so used to caring for others that they can stay preoccupied even at a saturating dose, which is one reason couples are sometimes advised to do sessions separately rather than together.
The Value Of Group Sessions 1:04:31
Group psychedelic experiences are described as holding a lot of the real value in this work. Sitting together in circles and sharing afterward shows how different everyone's raw experience can be while the insights that come back are often strikingly similar, and people have reportedly stopped drinking alcohol entirely after a single psilocybin experience. A study funded around 2014 or 2015 at UCSF looked at long-term demoralization in AIDS survivors and was notable for being among the first to build group integration into its design. Group delivery is expected to lower costs by splitting therapist time across several participants, and data from some ibogaine clinics reportedly shows better outcomes, not just lower costs, with a more nuanced and deeper experience for participants.
Building Mind Medicine Australia 1:07:00
Tania de Jong describes the difficulties of founding Mind Medicine Australia, noting that unlike other charities she and her husband had built, this one ran into deep vested interests among researchers who wanted years more study while patients were dying without other options. One researcher who ran a four-patient MDMA trial spanning over five years became one of the harshest critics of the organization, partly, she suggests, because she and her husband were not clinicians and were seen as outsiders overstepping into medical territory. Another lesson learned was that many people drawn to work for the charity had undisclosed struggles, including one instance of someone showing up drunk, which taught the team that a high-stress, law-changing environment requires resilient people, not those still working through their own conditions. She describes being personally attacked to the point of lying on the floor crying, and drawing on the resilience of her grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, to keep going.
Durable Remission And Neuroplasticity 1:14:00
Data are discussed showing remarkable durability of results, including MAPS phase 2 findings on complex PTSD where average diagnosis length was around 16 to 17 years, yet remission rates climbed after treatment ends, from roughly 54 percent shortly after the last session to about 68 percent six months later. This pattern, improvement increasing rather than fading over time, is contrasted with antidepressants, which typically show an initial improvement that plateaus. The concept of psychedelics opening a critical window of neuroplasticity is raised, comparing it to warming clay so it can be reshaped, though both speakers agree this is not a guaranteed cure and depends heavily on integration work like exercise, nutrition, and rebuilding supportive social connections afterward.
Winning Over The Regulator 1:18:31
De Jong recounts how Mind Medicine Australia persuaded the Therapeutic Goods Administration to let David Nutt speak to its staff, partly through having the mobile number of the agency's head and pushing when things stalled. What was expected to draw 10 to 15 attendees drew 140, and the room was moved to tears after a personal testimony from a woman named Vanessa, which De Jong credits as more persuasive than even Nutt's expertise. The organization continues to petition the TGA over bureaucratic rules, such as one, since loosened, that required the lead therapist to be a clinical psychologist, and a new submission is pending to extend legal psilocybin use to end-of-life stress and anxiety, paralleling Australia's legal voluntary assisted dying.
Clinic Costs And Access 1:24:00
Details are given on the cost of treatment at the Mind Medicine Australia Clinic in Abbotsford, Melbourne, run jointly with a listed company called Incannex. Treatment starts with a single dose so patients can withdraw early if it is not for them, costing about 8,000 Australian dollars, or roughly 5,000 US dollars, including screening. A full course of three doses with three to four months of integration runs up to about 25,000 Australian dollars, with MDMA sometimes costing slightly more than psilocybin due to an extra dosing session. The bulk of that cost is therapeutic time rather than the medicine itself, since two therapists are often present for long dosing sessions lasting five to six hours, and this is part of why video-monitored single-therapist models are being considered. A patient support fund and partial coverage through Medibank's gold membership are mentioned as ways to ease the financial burden.
A Gentler Cousin of MDMA 1:28:00
The conversation turns to methylone, described as a shorter, softer version of MDMA, offering something like a 45 to 60 minute experience compared to the four to six hour arc of a full MDMA session. Tim and Tania discuss how the real expense in psychedelic therapy is not the substance itself but the therapist's time, and how MAPS ran into regulatory trouble because the FDA is built to evaluate drugs, not to standardize psychotherapy paired with a drug. Transcend's approach of looking at dosing effects alone, even with a therapist present, could fit within a 60 to 120 minute window, potentially lowering costs. Because methylone and MDMA produce far less perceptual distortion than something like psilocybin, group settings become more feasible, since other patients in the room can act as witnesses without the risk of frightening hallucinations.
Cana Lift and the Ketamine Problem 1:30:30
Tania mentions discovering Cana Lift, a natural African substance similar to MDMA but shorter acting, around 90 minutes to two hours, which she encountered at an event in Austin. This leads into a discussion of ketamine, widely used in the US for depression but carrying high addiction potential. Tim notes he has seen lives unravel from ketamine misuse, though he acknowledges it has a place for acute suicidality when given via IV or intramuscular injection. They also discuss kratom, once seen as a savior for people escaping opioids, which can itself create dependency requiring rehab. Tim observes that natural substances are often assumed safer but can be poorly understood partly because there is less financial incentive to study something that cannot be patented.
Tim's Personal Ketamine Experiment 1:34:00
Tim describes deliberately undergoing two two-week sequences of ketamine infusions in Austin about ten years ago, following the Yale protocol, purely to understand the experience firsthand. Rather than reducing anxiety, the sessions coincided with him feeling increasingly anxious and forgetful, to the confusion of the clinicians tracking his assessments. He concluded the experience wasn't for him personally, yet weeks later noticed that a fifteen-year-old chronic back injury, which had caused persistent pain and breathing difficulty, had completely resolved and never returned. This convinced him ketamine has a genuine place for certain chronic pain conditions, even though it wouldn't make his own top five list of psychedelic options.
Australia's Role in Global Trials 1:40:30
Tania predicts major global shifts within months, expecting psilocybin and MDMA therapies from companies like Compass Pathways and the renamed MAPS entity to gain registration, especially given a recent US presidential executive order. She notes Australia and China are considered the two best places globally to run certain clinical trials, a fact many people don't realize.
Reflecting on Pushing Too Hard 1:42:00
Tim raises a pointed quote from Professor Scarat describing Mind Medicine Australia's aggressive advocacy, including sending staff the phone numbers of chief health officers. Tania admits she personally has had to scale back her own pushiness and has become more accepting when doors seem closed, choosing to pursue other opportunities rather than force them. Still, she maintains that nothing less than sustained pressure would have worked for this particular campaign, and that everything achieved was grounded in data and science rather than favors. She frames the effort as something everyone owes to those suffering, urging listeners to become their own chief medical officers and push for safe, effective options currently being withheld.
Closing Asks and Gratitude 1:47:00
Tania shares two requests: donations to Mind Medicine Australia's patient support fund, aiming to raise 2.5 million dollars for veterans, first responders, and single mothers who can't afford treatment, and interest from clinicians in their global Certificate in Psychedelic Assisted Therapy, taught by figures like Bessel van der Kolk, Gabor Maté, Bill Richards, David Nutt, and Rick Doblin. She invites Tim to join their advisory panel and describes their free webinar series featuring speakers like Peter Levine. The conversation closes with reflections on curiosity, inner exploration, and Ram Dass's phrase "we're all walking each other home," with Tania crediting Tim's earlier work as the spark that led Australia to become a world leader in this field.
An outsider's inspiring persistence 1:56:31
Tim praises Tania as an outsider who wasn't steeped in the field from day one, someone who experimented, cold emailed, and even flew to Wisconsin to sing, gradually moving mountains by picking the right place to apply pressure.
Just ask, mistakes included 1:57:32
Tim explains he wanted her on the podcast to show how much people underestimate what they can achieve by simply getting after it, even if they make mistakes or upset someone along the way. Tania agrees, noting that almost no one they have asked to join their advisory panel or host a webinar has said no, because people want to support good, pioneering causes.
Closing call to action 1:58:31
Tania urges listeners to grab their dreams, ask for help, and set them alight, while Tim adds that everyone will be dead and dust soon, so there is nothing to lose. He points listeners to mindaustralia.org.au and Tania's personal website, notes the show notes at tim.blog/mpodcast, and signs off encouraging kindness to others and to yourself.
AI-generated summary. It can be wrong or incomplete - check anything that matters against the original.
