On 13 May 1966, a US Senate subcommittee questioned a former Harvard clinical psychologist, considered by many to be “the most dangerous man in America”, on the risks of psychedelics. Leading the inquisition of Dr Timothy Leary was Senator Ted Kennedy, of America’s unofficial first family. Amid a series of questions that reflected the moral panic about psychedelics then gripping the US establishment, Kennedy asked: “This is a dangerous drug – is that right?” To which Leary replied: “No, sir. LSD is not a dangerous drug.” Kennedy remained unconvinced. To the committee of politicians listening to Leary, psychedelics were behind the hippy movement, anti-war protests and the general breakdown of society.

Earlier this month, almost exactly 60 years after this tense inquiry, Ted Kennedy’s nephew Robert F Kennedy Jr stood behind Donald Trump as he signed a new presidential executive order to accelerate mainstream access to medical treatment based on psychedelic drugs. A particular focus is ibogaine, a psychoactive compound derived from a West African shrub, which scientists suggest can be effective for treating chronic mental-health problems. Kennedy Jr has been the champion of psychedelics within the Maga coalition, alongside figures such as the podcaster Joe Rogan, who stood beside him in the Oval Office on 18 April. Rogan described to the press how he had encouraged the president to sign the executive order over text message.

This executive order has not come out of the blue. It reflects a shift in the image of psychedelics that has been happening for some time. Long caricatured as a marker of countercultural decadence, psychedelics have been rebranded by recent clinical research as potentially transformative mental-health treatments, helping patients suffering with issues such as depression, PTSD and suicidal ideation, and attracting unexpected new supporters. In 2023 Rick Perry, the former ultra-conservative governor of Texas turned psychedelics evangelist, argued that when it comes to legalisation of psychedelics, “at the federal level, this is more supported by the Republicans” than the Democrats. Psychedelics, once the preserve of anti-war lefties, have become a healthcare innovation backed by a warmongering rightwing president.

What has changed between the 60s, when psychedelics were feared by the American right, and today? First, scientific research into their therapeutic potential has meant that even traditionally conservative communities in the US, such as military veterans, are now throwing their weight behind calls to reform the laws on psychedelics. Veterans groups have spent years lobbying for the use of psychedelics to help address post-traumatic stress issues, and recently even some police officers have started to call for the same for their profession. But perhaps the big shift is the recognition that there’s money to be made.

Forbes now predicts that the value of the psychedelic mushroom market will surpass $3.3bn by 2031 following drug law reforms in a number of jurisdictions. And these recent legal changes may be just the start. With diagnoses of PTSD and depression rising at such a rate that the number of people living with mental-health disorders has reached 1 billion for the first time ever, cutting-edge new treatments for mental-health issues may become as lucrative as Ozempic proved when it was released into a world gripped by an obesity crisis. As the German biotech investor Christian Angermayer explained in a recent interview, people are now pouring money into companies developing psychedelic medicine because “we have the solution for the biggest problem in healthcare”.

Where is much of the investment coming from? In 2020, Peter Thiel backed a biotech startup focused on developing psychedelic mental-health treatments in a $125m funding round. In 2024, Google co-founder Sergey Brin poured $15m into a company that is looking to develop ibogaine as a treatment for traumatic brain injury. Look behind the curtain of the psychedelics renaissance and you will see a lot of familiar names from the tech oligarchy that has conquered the global economy during the 21st century.

In many ways, it is unsurprising that Silicon Valley has been so bullish on psychedelics. In the aftermath of the 60s, California computer scientists continued to see experimenting with psychedelics and new frontiers in technology all as part of the same counterculture. Over the years it has become almost a cliche for the latest celebrated tech genius to say they were inspired by psychedelics. Apple’s Steve Jobs, Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Open AI’s Sam Altman have all spoken publicly about their own psychedelic use, helping make mainstream what was once a fringe pursuit.

It’s also a worldview that has found a comfortable new home in a Republican administration that is, against all odds, transforming America’s relationship with drugs. “Can I have some, please? I’ll take it,” Trump quipped about ibogaine when signing the executive order, in a moment that must have made more traditional Republicans wonder if they had been spiked with hallucinogens themselves. While drug policy reform is supported by both Democrats and Maga Republicans now, with psychedelic therapy advancing furthest on the state level in blue states such as Colorado and Oregon, it is the alliance of Trump 2.0 with Silicon Valley that is fundamentally behind the acceleration we’re seeing today.

Leary famously thought that psychedelics would help people to “turn on, tune in and drop out” of conventional society. It’s an ethos that doesn’t quite land in an era in which psychedelics are being discussed at Davos on panels about “brain capital and human flourishing”. Today, the energy behind these drugs has moved from the beatniks to biohackers, from flower power to finance capital. This may mean more people get access to medicine that has the potential to utterly transform lives. But it might also mean that in Trump’s trippy second term, the future of mental-health treatment remains largely in the hands of the few.

• Kojo Koram is a professor of law and political economy at Loughborough University. His new book, The Next Fix: Winners and Losers in the Future of Drugs, is out on 4 June