April 2026 was a very busy month for psychedelic policy in the U.S., with bills progressing through statehouses or falling to the wayside as legislative sessions began to taper off and action from the very top of the federal government.
Most notably, on April 18th, President Trump signed an executive order directing various federal departments and agencies to accelerate psychedelic research and access. Headline measures include ARPA-H match-funding (initially $50M) for state-level psychedelic research, FDA priority vouchers to compress NDA review timelines for select psychedelic candidates, an instruction to the Attorney General to begin DEA scheduling reviews earlier in the approval process, and a clarification that the federal Right to Try pathway should extend to treatment-resistant patients seeking access to Schedule I drugs, including investigational psychedelics. (See: President Trump Signs Executive Order to Accelerate Psychedelic Research and Access; Trump’s Psychedelics Executive Order: Reactions From Across the Field and Beyond).
On the legislative front, more than three dozen psychedelics-related bills saw substantive activity in April across 20 states and at the federal level. Notably, seven became law, two were vetoed in West Virginia, and several others moved one chamber closer to enactment. The state-by-state round-up below highlights the more significant developments.
