What happened
A tweet from a U.S. senator was the motor driving Mind Medicine (MNMD -4.62%) stock up at near double-digit rates on Tuesday. Although the tweet didn't mention the company by name, it did strongly support the work it is doing, and investors were more than cheered by the move.
So what
The politician in question is Cory Booker, Democrat from New Jersey. Monday afternoon, Booker published a tweet accompanied by a video in which he passionately defended current research into psychedelic drugs. Specifically he named psilocybin and MDMA, both of which are currently illegal at the federal level.
Mind Medicine, also known as MindMed, has research programs involving the study of substances in both drugs. As the senator pointed out in the text portion of his tweet, these are showing promise in the treatment of afflictions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction, and depression.
"For too long, the war on drugs -- the legacy that is still with us -- drugs that could help people, drugs that could save lives, are being restricted. Restricted in their study, restricted in their clinical trials, and delayed," Booker said in the tweet's accompanying video.
Now what
Booker is a politician, and a high-profile one at that, so it won't shock anyone to learn that the tweet is part of one of his legislative efforts. In late July he and his co-sponsor, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, Republican from Kentucky, introduced the Right to Try Act, which would permit terminally ill patients to have access to drugs classified as Schedule 1 controlled substances by the Drug Enforcement Agency -- such as psilocybin and MDMA.
Similar to marijuana legalization, there is growing political power behind the movement to remove drugs like this from Schedule 1 classification. The latest expression of this power, then, is understandably encouraging for MindMed and its investors.
