Given the mental health crisis facing Australia, the former Federal Coalition Minister, Andrew Robb, today called on all NSW State Parliamentarians to demand urgent amendments to NSW Health Department regulations.

Changes are necessary to ensure the sensible availability of psychedelic treatments in NSW, following the 2023 TGA approvals, and the remarkable mental health results that have been achieved in over 125 clinical trials in the US, UK, Israel and Switzerland over the last 10 years.

Mr Robb said: “Despite Australia’s national medicines authority, the TGA, authorising approved psychiatrists to prescribe medical grade psilocybin for Australians suffering severely from treatment resistant depression and medical grade MDMA for Australians suffering from debilitating post-traumatic stress disorder as part of therapy, the NSW Health Department has imposed regulations which effectively block access. It beggars belief.”

Mr Robb backed the Mind Medicine Australia (MMA) campaign that is urging the NSW Government to adopt similar regulations to those put in place in Victoria and Queensland, allowing these medicines to be used in the clinics of approved psychiatrists in the same way that medicinal ketamine is used.

Mr Robb said: “NSW mental health sufferers face the ludicrous and hugely expensive situation of being forced to travel to Victoria or Queensland for the course of treatments.”

“The NSW requirement that treatments only occur at a mental health hospital, and that patients are required to stay overnight, rather than attend the day clinics of highly qualified psychiatrists, flies in the face of findings in more than 125 overseas clinical trials. The Department’s regulations make it prohibitively expensive for patients and ignores the huge difficulty in getting access to the limited number of mental health hospitals in NSW that are already strained to capacity. A forced overnight hospital stay has never been found to be necessary, and, if anything, such hospital stays can negatively impact the actual treatment.”

Notwithstanding the TGA national approval, the arguments put forward by the NSW Department of Health in defence of their blocking measures, including compulsory overnight hospital stays for each treatment, are that psychedelic treatments could:

  • Cause psychotic episodes

  • Cause episodes of impulsive self-harm, and

  • Result in dissociative states

“Yet, the facts are that in over 125 clinical trials there is no data that justifies these claims regarding psychotic episodes or impulsive self-harm.”

“In regard to dissociative states – these are not adverse events but an integral part of the treatment and only occur during the dosing sessions under the watchful eye of trained health practitioners”.

Mr Robb said: “The fear mongering being peddled by the NSW Department of Health is wrong and indefensible, given that their assertions have been demonstrably proven to be incorrect.”

“The efficacy and safety of the medical use of psilocybin and MDMA was dealt with in detail in MMA’s rescheduling applications which the TGA accepted. Urgent change to the NSW Health Department regulations regarding the medicinal use of psychedelics in NSW is desperately needed”, Mr Robb said.

All the Parliamentarians in the NSW Parliament have a responsibility to ensure the immediate amendment of relevant regulations to allow psychedelic-assisted therapy to take place in the mental health day clinics that were listed in the NSW psychiatrists’ applications to the Ethics Committee and TGA.

For further information and interviews please contact:

• Hon Andrew Robb AO, Board Member, Mind Medicine Australia.

Media enquires: Janie Clarebrough +61 429 179 789

• Peter Hunt AM, Chair, Mind Medicine Australia +61 419 271 483

peter@mindmedicineaustralia.org