Turn your recorder on,\u201d Rick Perry said, \u201cand I\u2019ll tell you how the right-wing, knuckle-dragging, conservative Republican governor of Texas even allowed his name to be used in the same sentence with \u2018psychedelics.\u2019\u200a\u201d This was a story, he warned, that could take fifteen or twenty minutes to tell. Instead, the governor who ran Texas for nearly half of my life extolled the benefits of such drugs as MDMA (a.k.a. Ecstasy), psilocybin mushrooms, and ibogaine for the better part of an hour and a half.<\/p>\n
Perry has been a force in Texas politics for nearly 38 years, since his election to a House seat in 1984. He held statewide office for 24 years and served as governor for 15. In long-standing Texas tradition, he made good money while in public service. He is not known as a bleeding-heart crusader.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Which makes it all the stranger that Perry has become an activist, and for an issue many Democrats in office still won\u2019t touch with a barge pole: the legalization of psychedelic drugs for therapeutic use. Though folks may not be primed to accept medical advice from Perry, who got a D in a class called Meats at Texas A&M, he\u2019s in good company with psychologists and scientists around the country. \u201cI\u2019m an animal science major, I\u2019m not a brain scientist, but I\u2019ve studied this,\u201d Perry said. \u201cThese compounds somehow reset the brain.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
If administered in controlled settings and with the help of doctors, he holds, psychedelics could improve millions of Americans\u2019 well-being. If Texas makes these drugs legal, he thinks, other states will fall in line.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d known about Perry\u2019s advocacy for psychedelic therapy for some time. In April 2021, he returned<\/a> to the Legislature to endorse a bill<\/a> offered by Representative Alex Dominguez, a Democrat from Brownsville, that called for a state-funded clinical study on the use of psilocybin mushrooms and ketamine to treat PTSD in veterans. Perry told lawmakers they had a chance to be heroes. \u201cThe idea that you come to public service and that you have saved a life,\u201d he said, choking up just a bit, \u201cwhat a powerful moment in time.\u201d<\/p>\n Perry\u2019s other appearance during the 2021 session, in which he held a press conference at the Capitol on behalf of an anti-COVID air filtration company, was more typical. In his remarks, he didn\u2019t mention having any financial interest in filter sales. When a reporter pressed him, Perry said he served on the board of the manufacturer. A company official later clarified<\/a> that Perry was a salesperson working on commission.\u00a0<\/p>\n When Texas Monthly<\/em> asked whether he or anyone in his family stands to profit in any way from the decriminalization of psychedelic drugs, Perry declined to comment. But it seems clear that Perry\u2019s interest in the matter extends beyond being a pitchman, if he is one. Last July, at a Texas meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference, Perry\u2019s sincerity seemed manifest. While most state elected officials and Trump stalwarts held forth on the main stage, eager to burnish their brands, Perry spoke only at a side event, the Cattleman\u2019s Ball, a fund-raising dinner. After some celebratory patter for those who\u2019d shelled out for the movement, Perry took the stage. In a vast ballroom lit with car-size glass chandeliers, the well-dressed audience was treated to a disquisition on the ways that drugs normally associated with ravers and festivalgoers help rewire the brain to reduce damage caused by trauma. It felt like a bad trip.<\/p>\n The story began,<\/strong> Perry told me, during the last week of July 2006. He was cruising to reelection in a four-way field that included independent candidate Kinky Friedman, the pot-smoking troubadour, and Perry felt secure enough to take a break. He and his wife, Anita, headed for Coronado Island, near San Diego, where the famous Hotel del Coronado sits just down the beach from one of the nation\u2019s most important Navy bases. \u201cI\u2019m not particularly fond of vacations,\u201d Perry said. \u201cI don\u2019t take time off particularly well. I\u2019m looking for something to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n![\"Marcus](\"https:\/\/img.texasmonthly.com\/2022\/05\/luttrell-rick-perry.jpg?auto=compress&crop=faces&fit=scale&fm=pjpg&h=640&ixlib=php-1.2.1&q=45&w=1024&wpsize=large\")