Trump signed an executive order on Saturday that instructs the US Food and Drug Administration to expedite review of drugs such as ibogaine, a drug that US military veteran groups have said can help treat post-traumatic stress disorder.
At an event in the Oval Office, US federal officials said that the reforms would pave the way for the drugs, which can cause hallucinations and are largely illegal, to be reclassified after successful clinical trials.
Trump also said the US would dedicate $US50 million ($A70 million) to federal research into ibogaine.
"Today's order will ensure that people suffering from debilitating symptoms might finally have a chance to reclaim their lives and lead a happier life," Trump said as he signed the executive order.
Trump said his directive will help "dramatically accelerate" access to research and treatments on psychedelic drugs.
"If these turn out to be as good as people are saying, it's going to have a tremendous impact," he said.
Veteran organisations and psychedelic advocates have long contended that the ibogaine, which is made from a shrub native to West Africa, has great promise for hard-to-treat conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder and opioid addiction.
Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has championed the idea of using drugs such as ibogaine as an alternative treatment for mental health conditions such as depression.
US FDA commissioner Marty Makary on Saturday said that decisions on the drugs could come as soon as this year.
Joining Trump in the Oval Office were his top health officials, podcaster Joe Rogan and Marcus Luttrell, the former Navy SEAL whose memoir about a deadly mission in Afghanistan was the basis of the film Lone Survivor.
Rogan said he texted Trump information on ibogaine and the president responded: "Sounds great. Do you want FDA approval? Let's do it."
"You're going to save a lot of lives through it," Luttrell told Trump during the ceremony.
"It absolutely changed my life for the better."
The FDA is also taking steps to clear the way for the first-ever human trials of ibogaine in the United States.
Trump's action surprised many longtime advocates and researchers in the psychedelic field, given that ibogaine is known to sometimes trigger potentially fatal heart problems.
The National Institutes of Health briefly funded research on the drug in the 1990s but discontinued the work due to ibogaine's "cardiovascular toxicity".
"it's been incredibly difficult to study ibogaine in the US because of its known cardiotoxicity," Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research director Frederick Barrett said.
"If the executive order can pave the way for doing objective, scientific research with this compound, it would help us understand whether it is truly a better psychedelic therapy than others."
No psychedelic has been approved in the United States but a number of them are being studied in large trials for various mental health conditions including psilocybin, MDMA and LSD.
Ibogaine was first used by members of the Bwiti religion in African countries like Gabon during their religious ceremonies.
In recent years, US veterans have reported benefiting from the drug after travelling to clinics in Mexico that administer it.
Backing from veterans groups and former Texas governor Rick Perry led to a law last year providing $US50 million for ibogaine research in that state.
Perry, who co-founded a group called Americans for Ibogaine, recently appeared on Rogan's podcast, making the case for reducing federal limits on the drug.
It was his second time talking about ibogaine on the popular podcast in the past two years.
with AP
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