🫠 Psychonaut POV

PRESENTED BY SCHOOL OF PSYCHEDELICS & ALTHEA 🤝

Welcome to Tricycle Day. We’re the psychedelics newsletter that knows advocacy is a marathon, not a sprint. But elite marathoners still hold a 5-min mile pace. Just sayin. 🏃

Crystal C. Romero wants to set the record straight. Psychedelic advocacy isn’t glamorous. But after a forced medical retirement from the Army National Guard left her searching for purpose, she found it in the grueling work of getting New Mexico's Medical Psilocybin Act passed.

We asked Crystal how psychedelics helped her work through betrayal and moral injury, why confidentiality matters for service members seeking mental health care, and how the next state-regulated psychedelic therapy program might launch a full year early.

FROM OUR SPONSORS

Brace yourselves. The holidays are coming.

Good tidings they do bring, but you know what else tags along? Social exhaustion.

Fortunately, with Fun Guy’s kanna products, no amount of small talk with your partner’s coworkers has to take you out.

Kanna supports serotonin signaling to help your social battery recover faster. Pop a chew before, during, or after your events to avoid that crash that makes you want to hibernate till January.

Did we mention it’s legal everywhere, and way better than hiding in the bathroom scrolling your phone?

Take 20% off with code TRICYCLEDAY.

What happened after your medical retirement from the Army National Guard that led you into psychedelic advocacy?

After I medically retired, I just fell apart. I was dealing with PTSD, migraines, and a lot of emotional pain that I didn't understand. It was a sharp contrast to the life I had known working in a Homeland Security capacity on a Civil Support Team, providing humanitarian aid, counter-narcotics support, and responding to Weapons of Mass Destruction incidents. I was a peaceful soldier. Unlike many veterans, my trauma wasn't from combat. It was moral injury.

I didn't know what moral injury was at the time, so I was just out there in the wind, falling into self-destructive patterns while trying to find a new identity. I went to the VA and took all the medications and did all the therapy, but nothing was touching the root of what I was feeling.

Three years ago, I went on a retreat to Peru with Heroic Hearts Project and worked with ayahuasca. That was the first time I ever dealt with my anger. I had all this internal rage that was slowly killing me, and I was finally able to sit with it. It turned out the anger was really just grief.

Then in November 2024, I went to Jamaica with Beckley Retreats and worked with psilocybin for the first time. That changed everything. Psilocybin cured my depression, which I didn't even think was possible. I'd accepted I was going to be depressed for the rest of my life.

That's what led me to advocacy. If I could overcome depression, and I got to witness the transformation in my peers too, I knew I needed to speak up. When I found out New Mexico was creating a psilocybin act, I knew I had to testify. It felt like vindication. I was born, raised, and traumatized right here in New Mexico.

You talk a lot about moral injury alongside PTSD. What's the difference, and how do psychedelics work for each?

PTSD is more fear based. It's about what happened to you. But moral injury is deeper. It's about what happened within you. I call it a soul injury. Your spirit has been damaged, and there's no pill for that. You just have to learn how to manage it.

My moral injury came from betrayal by my own leadership. I filed a complaint about a soldier struggling with drugs and alcohol as a result of trauma, and my leaders just turned the other way. I was the victim advocate for the sexual assault program, and here was a female soldier who'd been assaulted and was now struggling with addiction. Ironically, the general officer who relieved me oversaw that same program. She was about to make a historic promotion when all this went down. It went against everything we claim to be about, and it really hurt.

Psychedelics help with both PTSD and moral injury, but in different ways. They calm your nervous system, which helps with PTSD. For moral injury, they open your heart. Mine had completely shut down. I was very cold and didn't really care about anything anymore. I'd even lost touch with my own three daughters.

When my career ended abruptly, a big part of me died. But the healing didn’t come from the medicine alone. It also came from my integration and the community of people walking beside me. All of that helped open my heart again and start giving a shit. That's what made me a better advocate.

Can you tell us about the Brandon Act? Why is confidential mental health access so important for service members?

The Brandon Act gives service members the ability to get mental health support confidentially, without fear of hurting their career, losing their security clearance, or losing the ability to carry a weapon. It adds a layer of protection against retaliation.

It connects directly to my story because seeking mental health care is exactly how I lost my career. I referred myself to the hospital because I was being harassed at work, and my leadership used that fact to discharge me. They said I was unfit for duty when in fact I was just isolated, humiliated, and demoralized.

The Brandon Act adds protection so that your chain of command won't have access to your medical records. My medical records were passed around at a meeting like a memorandum about the parking lot getting paved. It was such a violation of my privacy.

There's still a lot of stigma around getting mental health support in the military. People are afraid to save their own lives because they think they’ll be penalized. I get messages all the time from service members going through what I went through. I tell them to contact their representative and invoke the Brandon Act.

I’m not sure if the Brandon Act applies to the centers offering psychedelic therapy to active-duty troops and veterans, but I hope it does. If we want people to get the care they need and contribute to research, we can't disincentivize them from participating.

Walk us through getting New Mexico's Medical Psilocybin Act passed. What makes the program unique, and what's its current status?

Working on Senate Bill 219 was such a powerful journey. It started with real conversations with veterans and families who needed another option. I worked with lawmakers, doctors, and community advocates to build something that felt safe and responsible.

What makes New Mexico’s program unique is that it's a true medical model. It’s not decriminalization; it’s even different from Oregon and Colorado’s programs, which allow non-clinicians to facilitate sessions. Our model prioritizes medical oversight from trained health care providers. Veterans and first responders will be the first patients to qualify for the pilot program.

It was powerful to see my community come together. Perfect strangers came down to the state capitol to lobby. You spend days down there, and it's a grueling process. Advocacy isn’t particularly fun. But we were able to change Congress members' minds.

My colleague Chris and I made a good team because we could reach different people. He'd connect with one senator through shared experience with alcoholism and they'd both end up in tears. I'd explain the medical screening and integration process to another representative, and flip a hard no into a yes vote. That's the power of having different voices. The collective of lived experience made all the difference.

The program’s board has just been appointed, though it hasn't been announced publicly yet. Originally, according to the legislation that was passed, we had until December 2027 to get everything running. But with everyone's eagerness, we're now looking at hopefully shaving off a full year and launching by December 2026.

What are the biggest barriers to getting the military and VA to embrace psychedelic therapies? What still needs to shift?

Stigma and fear are still the biggest barriers. The military isn't used to admitting that some of its approaches haven't worked. There's a lack of education and trust, both from leadership and from veterans who have been failed by the system.

What needs to change is mindset. We need leaders who listen to lived experience and appreciate that healing isn't one size fits all. Research is growing, but military culture needs to catch up to the evidence.

There are folks working at the federal level, like Juliana Mercer, who was actually my integration coach, leading the charge for MDMA therapy. I've seen the incredible impact that's had on veterans, too.

We veterans know what we were promised, and we know what's not happening. We're going to be in your face until we start getting care that works. I tried everything the VA threw at me, and it didn't do much. Working with psychedelics was a game changer.

Our next generation of service members deserves better options than what we had. The shift is happening. That's why I keep showing up.

Want more from Crystal?

Check out her personal blog for first-hand accounts of her ayahuasca and psilocybin mushroom retreats.

UNTIL NEXT TIME

That’s all for today, Cyclists! Whenever you’re ready, here’s how we can help.

ONE CYCLIST’S REVIEW

Forwarded this email? Subscribe here.

DISCLAIMER: This newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. The use, possession, and distribution of psychedelic drugs are illegal in most countries and may result in criminal prosecution.