Pa. House Democrats consider ‘magic mushrooms’ as mental health treatmentJaxon White/WITF Bio Recent Stories I report on how decisions made in Pennsylvania’s state Capitol ripple across communities throughout the commonwealth. “In my line of work, we use unconventional tools to fix a complex problem, and I feel that mental health is the complex problem that we need to use unconventional methods on,” Gardill said. A growing body of research has shown that microdoses of psilocybin could be an effective tool for treating mental health illnesses. Pennycuick also sought support last year for a “right-to-try” psilocybin treatment proposal for veterans, but she did not formally introduce it. He pointed to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics that nearly 50,000 people died by suicide in 2023 to argue that a major change in mental health treatment is urgent.