Bryan Hubbard, CEO of Americans for Ibogaine, spoke at an event in London this week, where he was interviewed by Labour MP Charlotte Nichols.

Yuli Gates

In the wake of a landmark Executive Order accelerating psychedelic research and access in the U.S., new polling suggests support for psilocybin-assisted therapy now extends across Britain’s political spectrum.

A YouGov survey of 2,148 UK adults, commissioned by campaign group Psilocybin Access Rights (PAR), has found that 68% support the medical use of psilocybin-assisted therapy for end-of-life psychological distress, with just 8% opposed.

The majority also support its use for a number of neurological conditions, such as cluster headaches, traumatic brain injury and stroke recovery (61%) and serious mental health conditions like depression, anxiety, PTSD, anorexia, OCD and addiction (53%), findings that were consistent among Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Green and Reform UK voters.

Advocates say the data raises fresh questions about whether policymakers are keeping pace with public opinion on psychedelic medicine.

"These figures should reshape the political conversation in Westminster," said Timmy Davis, co-founder of PAR in a statement released alongside the new data.

"The evidence tells us what every clinician working in this field already knows— there is no reason for keeping psilocybin trapped in Schedule 1, unable to be prescribed to patients who may benefit.”

International Influences

The findings come amid growing international momentum for access to psychedelic-assisted therapies.

In April, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the FDA to accelerate reviews of psychedelic medicines, issue National Priority Vouchers to three psychedelics with Breakthrough Therapy designation, and establish an access pathway for investigational psychedelics.

Bryan Hubbard, CEO of Americans for Ibogaine, who has become one of the most prominent conservative advocates of psychedelic research in the U.S., visited London this week ,where he was interviewed by Labour MP Charlotte Nichols, who has also lobbied successive governments on this issue.

Hubbard explained: “The executive order signed by President Trump in April directs $50 million through ARPA-H to states developing psychedelic research programmes, expands the Right to Try framework, and has support from Republican and Democratic legislators alike. It came from years of clinical data, from veterans demanding access, and from a political system that finally caught up with the people it serves.”

Support among Brits polled increased between four and six percentage points for its use in end-of-life care, neurological and mental health conditions once respondents were told about international access policy initiatives.

Regulated frameworks have already been implemented in several U.S. states, while Canada operates a Special Access Program. Australia voted to reschedule psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression in 2023, the same year New Zealand introduced compassionate access.

Closer to home, Germany and the Czech Republic now also have frameworks to allow patients to access psilocybin-assisted therapy in certain cases, something which has been available in Switzerland for decades.

A Bipartisan Political Issue

The new U.K. data, together with the developments in the U.S., disarm some long-standing assumptions about the political right, with psychedelics having largely been associated with counterculture movements and drug policy activism on the left.

Current Reform UK and Conservative voters back the UK government allowing end-of-life psilocybin use by 68% to 11% — and even on the most contested framing, psilocybin for mental health, Reform voters split positively, 45% to 26%.

Hubbard argues that the growing support is increasingly being driven by dissatisfaction with current healthcare and societal systems, rather than ideology.

"We have a broken system that is not serving a broken society," he said.

A lawyer by background, Hubbard previously oversaw Kentucky’s opioid settlement commission, and has been heavily involved in efforts to secure public funding for research into ibogaine, a psychedelic compound being investigated for addiction and traumatic brain injury.

He says some of the strongest momentum in the U.S. has come from military veterans seeking alternatives to existing treatments.

"What is happening in the United States is not a partisan project,” Hubbard said.

“It is a veterans-led, evidence-led correction of a forty-year mistake."

Nichols suggested that concerns around increasing mental health costs and economic inactivity may also be helping broaden support for reform across political lines, particularly among conservatives.

“The economic argument is being received with more openness than I might have expected from the right of British politics," she added.

Will The UK Be Left Behind?

The UK was an early leader in advancing the science behind psychedelic medicine, with Imperial College London establishing the world’s first dedicated Centre for Psychedelic Research in 2019, now one of the most influential institutions in the field.

Yet campaigners argue that it risks falling behind countries that have moved more quickly on access and regulation.

The PAR campaign is calling for psilocybin to be moved from Schedule 1 to Schedule 2 of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001, a change advocates say would reduce barriers to research and allow prescribing under appropriate medical frameworks.

The organization is also seeking an urgent review by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD).

The ACMD published its ’Barriers to Research (part 2)’ review in 2023, identifying the regulatory friction holding back legitimate clinical research on Schedule 1 substances like psilocybin, but successive governments have been slow to translate those recommendations into tangible changes.

Hubbard urged UK policymakers to focus on measurable outcomes rather than cultural assumptions about psychedelic compounds.

"There are improving outcome potentials, which mean monetary outcome potentials, that exist at scale," he said, pointing to the costs associated with addiction treatment, mental health care and long-term disability.

Whether that argument gains traction in Westminster remains to be seen. But the latest polling suggests one thing is becoming increasingly difficult for the government to ignore.

The Liberal Democrats formally adopted a policy which included a call for psilocybin rescheduling to facilitate research at its Spring Conference in York in March 2026, while The Green Party has long-standing policy backing substantial public funding for psychedelic research as adjunctive therapies for mental illness and addiction.

According to PAR, MPs from Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party have now signed an open letter calling for a review of psilocybin's scheduling status.

"What this polling shows is that informed publics back evidence-led reform," added co-founder Tara Austin.

"When people learn that the rest of the world is moving forward, and that British scientists previously led in this field, they want their country to act."