Ousted KY official who championed psychedelic to treat addiction lands similar job in Ohio

The recently ousted director of Kentucky’s commission charged with distributing opioid lawsuit settlement money, who championed a proposal to invest those funds into researching the efficacy of a psychedelic drug to treat opioid addiction, has accepted a similar role in Ohio.

Bryan Hubbard, former executive director of the Kentucky Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission, has signed a contract with the state of Ohio.

His job: To help build public-private partnerships for potential projects “related to the treatment of Traumatic Brain Injury, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and other related and unrelated mental health and substance use conditions,” according to a spokesperson in the office of Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague.

“In part, the work is set to assist the Treasurer’s office with determining the feasibility of potential solutions with ResultsOHIO and other pay-for-success models,” Brittany Halpin, Prague’s press secretary, said in an email.

ResultsOHIO is a state government initiative that uses a combination of public and private funding to pursue “innovative” ways to address Ohio’s “most pressing social and public health challenges,” according to the Treasurer’s website. Hubbard will be paid $45,000 for his independent contracting services, according to his contract, which was reviewed by the Herald-Leader.

The Treasurer’s office has asked him to detail how Ohio can best seek “stakeholder-based coalitions to establish and provide feedback and support, including private and public financial support” for future ResultsOHIO projects to treat traumatic brain injuries, PTSD and addiction that have yielded “results-based solutions.”

While working with the state to “deliver novel treatment access and research opportunities for veterans and opioid dependent individuals,” Hubbard told the Herald-Leader, he’s also partnering with the Ohio-based REID Foundation to “create the framework for ibogaine clinical trials in Ohio.”

In a press release last week announcing that partnership, REID Foundation said Hubbard will work to create an “implementation framework that he hopes will lead to the execution of FDA-approved clinical research trials with ibogaine in Ohio for the treatment of opioid dependence.”

Hubbard was in the process of similar work in Kentucky as head of the Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission when he was asked to resign in late December by incoming Republican Attorney General Russell Coleman.

Coleman appointed Chris Evans, a former chief operating officer for the Drug Enforcement Administration, in Hubbard’s place.

The REID Foundation was created by Rex Elsass, who lost his son to addiction in 2019. Elsass is also one of the nation’s premier Republican operatives. In 2016, GQ Magazine dubbed him “The Most Powerful Man in the GOP (And You’ve Never Heard Of Him).” His political media and consulting firm is called The Strategy Group.

Elsass has been close to Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, serving as a key adviser in Paul’s 2016 bid for president. As senator, Paul has spearheaded efforts into seeking alternative therapies to treat addiction.

A donor with close connections to Paul, Jeff Yass, was the primary funder of outside groups that aided former Attorney General Daniel Cameron in his gubernatorial race against Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear. Elsass’ political firm has performed work for those groups. Yass’ investment firm, he became a billionaire through the stock market, also has some interest in biopharmaceutical companies with a focus on psychedelic addiction treatments like Ibogaine.

Elsass’ advocacy for ibogaine can be traced back to Hubbard’s time in Kentucky. Elsass was one of several people who showed up at an Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission meeting to advocate for use of the experimental psychedelic.

And while the commission’s work was under way, a former executive assistant at Elsass’ political operation started a group called the Kentucky Ibogaine Initiative. Elsass and the current president of The Strategy Group, Ryan Rodgers, are still listed as directors on the nonprofit’s filing with the Kentucky Secretary of State’s Office.

These ties were examined in a Daily Beast story published in the lead-up to Cameron’s race for governor.

Created in 2022, the Kentucky commission is charged with doling a portion of the state’s nearly $900 million in opioid lawsuit settlement money to addiction prevention and mitigation efforts. Hubbard was appointed to the commission at the time by Cameron.

Last May, alongside Cameron in a news conference, Hubbard unveiled his idea to pull $42 million of that sum, to be matched in private contributions, to make Kentucky the first state to research ibogaine as a therapeutic for opioid addiction by helping fund and oversee clinical trials with the goal of securing U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to distribute it widely.

Controversial in part because ibogaine is a Schedule 1 drug in the United States, the commission hosted multiple public hearings and listened to several personal ibogaine success stories, but its members never formally voted on the proposal. Evans, the new commission head, has been publicly non-commital about whether he plans to continue Hubbard’s work on ibogaine.

Likewise, Coleman has not said much publicly about his support or opposition to the proposal, but when announcing Evans as Hubbard’s replacement, he remarked, “There’s been a lot of ink spilled on ibogaine. My concern is that we are not focused as intently as we should be on the prevention piece of this.”

Roughly a week later, in late December, Hubbard submitted his letter of resignation, implying Coleman forced him to resign. “New leadership has been requested,” Hubbard wrote.

Hubbard, in his comments to the Herald-Leader about his new post, said he was “saddened that a lack of courage and vision from (Coleman) has deprived Kentucky of its opportunity to lead the nation in the development of ibogaine’s revolutionary therapeutic potentials. However, I am strongly encouraged that genuine leaders exist across the river to ensure that ibogaine’s promise has an opportunity to be fulfilled for all who may choose to seek it.”

Coleman’s office did not respond to emailed questions for this story.