The Lawyer Who Sued the DEA Over Psilocybin Access Is Now HHS's "Psychedelics Czar"
Matt Zorn joined HHS as Deputy General Counsel in May 2025 and is now, per Marijuana Moment's reporting, informally known inside the department as its "psychedelics czar." The irony: he got there by suing the government. In 2023 he forced HHS to release its unredacted scientific recommendation to reschedule cannabis via a FOIA suit, and he represented terminally ill patients seeking psilocybin access under Right to Try laws against the DEA — a case the courts ultimately decided in the DEA's favor. He was also involved in the legal challenge to the DEA's proposed Schedule I listing of five psychedelic tryptamines we covered this month — the same agency he's now, as an HHS official, working alongside rather than against.
Interviewed by Psychedelic Alpha editor Josh Hardman at The Psychedelic Healthcare Forum in New York, Zorn described the April 2026 psychedelics executive order as reflecting a willingness to "question our status quo assumptions," and pushed back on any sense that HHS is moving chaotically: "very orderly," he said, crediting the Secretary with hiring him partly because of his track record suing the department. He framed psychedelics as "a tool that can go in the toolbox" for the mental health crisis — not the only solution — and said officials across party lines want to move the issue forward. Asked directly whether an approved psilocybin drug could eventually undercut the logic of keeping the underlying compound in Schedule I, he declined to answer, citing his government role.
The interview's stated focus — his views on ibogaine specifically and the mechanics of Right to Try — runs behind Psychedelic Alpha's paywall; what's above is what's publicly available. We'll follow up if more surfaces.