How did Australia achieve a world-first breakthrough in medical psychedelics—and what can other countries learn from it?

I joined Tim Ferriss (@tferriss) to share the story behind Australia’s landmark rescheduling of medical psychedelics—and the lessons that could help other nations pursue change.

The Playbook Behind Australia’s World-First Breakthrough takes you behind the headline to explore how a bold ambition became a reality. For anyone interested in mental health, medical innovation or making change happen, this is a conversation worth hearing.

The Tim Ferriss Show is a business and interview podcast that has reached No. 1 on Apple Podcasts’ overall chart on multiple occasions and surpassed one billion downloads.

Full episode https://buff.ly/EWFfKjb

With your support, here is what we’ve achieved in seven years: https://buff.ly/DudYQZw

Since 2024, 400+ patients have been treated with extraordinary outcomes. @MindMedicineAU’s Patient Support Fund (PSF) subsidises treatment costs for Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies in Australia to enable equitable access. We have supported over 16 patients so far. Please DONATE today and help us change and heal many more lives: https://buff.ly/LyIXXNd

We have recently launched the Mind Medicine Australia Clinic. If you are seeking treatment enquire here: https://buff.ly/n6OKqlI

How to Legalize Medical Psychedelics in Your Country — Tania de Jong on The Playbook Behind Australia’s World-First Breakthrough (#883) - The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss

Source: https://tim.blog/2026/09/18/how-to-legalize-medical-psychedelics/?utm_content=buffer72e88&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer My guest today isTania de Jong, co-founder ofMind Medicine Australia. Tania and her husband, Peter, helped lead the push that, in 2023, made Australia the first country in the world to allow MDMA and psilocybin to be prescribed for psychiatric conditions. I wanted to understand how the hell they helped make that happen and what the rest of the world can learn from it.

Please enjoy!

This episode is brought to you by:

• ProLonscience-backed Fasting Mimicking Diet that helps activate cellular renewal through fasting, while you still eat nourishing meals
• Momentoushigh-quality creatine for cognitive and muscular support
• AG1all-in-one nutritional supplement

How to Legalize Medical Psychedelics in Your Country — Tania de Jong on The Playbook Behind Australia’s World-First Breakthrough

Additional podcast platforms

Listen to this episode onApple Podcasts,Spotify,Overcast,Podcast Addict,Pocket Casts,Castbox,YouTube Music,Amazon Music,Audible, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Transcripts

• This episode
• All episodes

Show Notes

Connect with Tania

Website|LinkedIn|Mind Medicine Australia

Timeline:

• **February 2, 2015:**Michael Pollan publishes “The Trip Treatment” in*The New Yorker,*which is the article Tania credits with setting her journey in motion.
• **March 21, 2015:**Tim releases his James Fadiman interview, “The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide” (#66). Its show notes link to “The Trip Treatment.”
• **January 15, 2016:**Tim announces support for Johns Hopkins’ psilocybin research and a personal commitment of at least $100,000 toward psychedelic research that year.
• **2016:**Tania and Peter travel to the Netherlands for their first guided psilocybin experience.(Source)
• **2017–2019:**UCSF conducts thepsilocybin-assisted group-therapy studyinvolving long-term AIDS survivors that Tim helped support.
• **May 6, 2018:**Michael Pollan joins Tim for “Exploring the New Science of Psychedelics” (#313), discussing his forthcoming book (How to Change Your Mind).
• **May 15, 2018:**Michael Pollan’sHow to Change Your Mindis published.
• **February 13, 2019:**Tania and Peter publicly launchMind Medicine Australia.
• **2020–2022:**MMA applies to reschedule MDMA and psilocybin, faces rejection, and submits new applications in March 2022.(Source)
• **November 21, 2022:**David Nutt presents to Australia’s medicines regulator, the TGA, supporting the case for therapeutic access.(Source)
• February 3, 2023:The TGA announces restricted prescribing access to MDMA for PTSD and psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression, effectiveJuly 1, 2023.(Source)
• **January 2024:**Patients begin receiving treatment under the new prescribing program.(Source)

Books

• Be Here Nowby Ram Dass
• How to Change Your Mindby Michael Pollan
• Waking the Tiger: Healing Traumaby Peter A. Levine, with Ann Frederick

Related Reading, Listening, and Viewing

• “The Trip Treatment”by Michael Pollan | The New Yorker
• How Singing Together Changes the Brain— Tania de Jong | TEDxMelbourne
• Becoming Nobody— a documentary about Ram Dass
• “‘Serious Concerns’ over TGA’s Decision Making on Landmark Psilocybin, MDMA Ruling”| ABC News
• Change to Classification of Psilocybin and MDMA to Enable Prescribing by Authorised Psychiatrists| Therapeutic Goods Administration
• Psilocybin-Assisted Group Therapy for Demoralized Older Long-Term AIDS Survivor Men: An Open-Label Safety and Feasibility Pilot Study
• Dr. Gül Dölen on Rethinking Psychedelics, the Neurobiology of Beginner’s Mind, and the Master Key of Metaplasticity| The Tim Ferriss Show #667
• Rick Doblin — The Psychedelic Domino That Tips All Others| The Tim Ferriss Show #440
• Roland Griffiths — Facing Death, Meditation, Psychedelics, and Living a Life of Gratitude| The Tim Ferriss Show #641

Organizations and Resources

• Mind Medicine Australia’s Patient Support Fund
• Certificate in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies
• Mind Medicine Australia’s TGA Rescheduling Submissions and Resources
• Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)
• Usona Institute
• Internal Family Systems Institute
• Australian Interventional Pharmacotherapy and Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy Research Registry| Australian National University

People Mentioned

• Peter Hunt
• Robin Carhart-Harris
• Roland Griffiths
• Rick Doblin
• David Nutt
• Bill Linton
• Paul Fitzgerald
• Gül Dölen

Timestamps

[00:00:00] Intro from Tim.

[00:02:46] The article that changed Tania’s life.

[00:04:39] A first psychedelic experience—and the year it took to integrate it.

[00:10:17] Rick Doblin’s encouragement and the birth of Mind Medicine Australia.

[00:13:15] Turning regulatory rejection into a stronger application.

[00:20:48] Building a grassroots movement and training clinicians.

[00:23:23] Cold emails, scientific allies, and singing your way into the room.

[00:31:11] A week with Ram Dass: silence, singing, and an extraordinary LSD story.

[00:37:54] Bringing David Nutt—and a family’s devastating story—to the regulators.

[00:42:42] Dancing in the kitchen: Australia’s rescheduling breakthrough.

[00:43:40] From changing the rules to treating patients.

[00:48:18] Why Tim thinks MDMA is still underestimated.

[00:50:23] Integration beyond the session: therapy, nutrition, and exercise.

[00:52:29] Scaling access and collecting real-world evidence.

[00:58:13] Getting insurers, government agencies, and philanthropists on board.

[01:01:39] Syrian rue, psilocybin, and learning to let go of control.

[01:10:01] Dosing, expectations, and the pressure to take more.

[01:12:02] The promise of group therapy and shared integration.

[01:14:22] Hiring mistakes, personal attacks, and the resilience advocacy requires.

[01:23:38] Turning a window of change into lasting habits.

[01:25:51] Getting through to regulators and pushing for end-of-life access.

[01:28:27] The bureaucratic barriers that remain.

[01:31:38] What treatment costs—and why therapist time drives the bill.

[01:35:07] Could shorter-acting compounds make treatment more affordable?

[01:38:46] Ketamine, kratom, and the limits of “all natural.”

[01:43:14] The unexpected payoff from Tim’s ketamine experiment.

[01:47:46] What might come next for psychedelic access worldwide?

[01:49:04] Persistence versus pushiness—and knowing when to try another door.

[01:54:22] Supporting patients and training the next wave of clinicians.

[01:57:51] “Be curious”: exploring your inner world and walking each other home.

[02:01:35] The ripple effects of sharing your curiosity—and simply asking for help.

Quotations from This Episode

“Be curious.”

— Tania de Jong

“I never saw a single piece of nature the same since that [first high-dose psilocybin session]. So every seashell, cloud, leaf, blade of grass—just everything was transformed by that experience, and I could see the energy in everything.”

— Tania de Jong

“We want people to have meaningful lives. We want them to feel healthy. We want them to be able to see the sacred in everything.”

— Tania de Jong

“When you’re trying to change the law, you need people around you that are very strong and who are resilient because we got knocked down over and over.”

— Tania de Jong

“Anyone who’s a pioneer who’s trying to drive change is going to be attacked.”

— Tania de Jong

“We all have to become our own chief medical officers. We have to work out what’s going to work for us, what’s going to make us whole and healed so that we can live our best lives possible.”

— Tania de Jong

“One of the great things I learned was to never let anyone snatch your dreams away.”

— Tania de Jong

“Let’s just keep asking questions and not outsourcing ourselves to all of the chatbots and all of the robots.”

— Tania de Jong

**Want to hearanother episode with someone who spent decades turning a stigmatized medicine into approved treatment?**Listen to my conversation with MAPS founderRick Doblin, in which we discussed the founding of MAPS, MDMA’s unlikely path from the lab into the therapy room, Sasha Shulgin, the difference between MDMA and MDA, MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD, treating veterans and first responders, what it cost to champion psychedelics long before the mainstream caught on, the fight to reschedule MDMA, a surprise $10M challenge,and much more.

This episode is brought to you byAG1. I’ve taken AG1 for more than a decade. Longtime listeners have heard me call it my nutritional insurance. Here’s the news: they recently launched AG1 Pro, designed for people focused on performance and longevity. I’ll be traveling soon, and I’m throwing this in my bag to cover my bases while I travel. Past a certain age, maintaining lean muscle becomes priority number one, and AG1 Pro is formulated to support exactly that. It includes HMB, a clinically studied compound that supports protein synthesis and helps reduce protein breakdown, plus zinc carnosine to support the gut lining. Remember: training is only half the equation. Recovery is where the work compounds, and AG1 Pro is built to support it. It’s NSF Certified for Sport, so what’s on the label is what’s in the pouch.Get your free AG1 Pro Yeti Shaker in the Welcome Kit atDrinkag1.com/Tim.

This episode is brought to you byMomentous Creatine!I’ve used Momentous Creatine for a long time, as it’s been one of the highest-quality creatine options available. Now, Momentous has taken that quality even further withSignature Spec Creatine, their most advanced version yet.Signature Specis manufactured in a pharmaceutical facility using reverse-osmosis water purification. It’s verified through a six-stage testing process with four independent agencies—delivering 10x fewer impurities, 2–5x tighter heavy-metal limits, and added PFAS and microplastics screening.

The ultrafine powder also mixes cleanly, with no grit. Creatine supports strength, power, lean muscle, and recovery, with growing research on enhanced memory and cognitive performance.Head toLiveMomentous.com/Timanduse code TIMfor 14% off your first one-time order or a total of 35% off your first subscription order.

**This episode is brought to you buyProLon!**One name that has come up on this podcast more than once is Dr. Valter Longo, a USC professor with decades of peer-reviewed research on fasting, nutrition, and aging. I regularly fast and have done a lot of experiments with fasting over more than a decade, and it has been one of the most incredible unlocks that I have found for both near- and long-term physical and mental health.

But fasting can be really hard, and that is why Dr. Longo, best known for the Fasting Mimicking Diet (FMD), developed**ProLon**.**For 5 days, you’re able to get the benefits of fasting—including autophagy, your body’s cellular, self cleanup process—all while eating real, structured, plant-based meals.**In scientific studies, 5-day cycles of the Fasting Mimicking Diet improved markers tied to metabolic health and biological aging and helped people drop fat while holding onto lean muscle. And ProLon makes it easy: it comes in one box, everything is clearly laid out, and there’s no guesswork.For a limited time, Prolon is offering my listeners 15% off sitewide, plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe to their 5-day program. Just visitProLonLife.com/Tim.