Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) used nearly $19,000 from her campaign coffers last year to pay a psychiatrist specializing in ketamine therapy — a powerful drug that puts patients in a hallucinatory state to treat disorders like trauma and depression.
This revelation is the result of an exclusive look at federal campaign records New York Post, Turns out the Bronx lawmaker has hired Boston-based Dr. Brian Boyle, chief psychiatric officer at a chain of clinics called Stella, which focus on “innovative” or alternative treatment protocols that have emerged in recent years.
According to Federal Election Commission records, AOC’s campaign “paid Boyle $11,550 in March 2025, $2,800 in May and $4,375 in October, for a total of $18,725.” Post.
While ketamine therapy has gained rapid acceptance as an effective treatment when administered correctly, critics are puzzled as to why it would be considered a legitimate campaign expense.
WATCH – JD Vance Roasts AOC: I Can “Pause for 20 Seconds” Like He Did at the Munich Conference:
Post The expenses were reported to be marked “leadership training and consulting.”
“It is not clear what the session involved or who participated,” he said Post Informed. “Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.”
Boyle, a Harvard-trained MD, describes his practice’s protocols as “innovative, effective and transformative, allowing people to feel better faster and maintain long-lasting benefits.” Stella includes “board certified providers” and “field-leading experts” who have treated more than 30,000 people across more than 20 locations, their psychology today Profile Status.
The drug ketamine, a dissociative anesthetic commonly used for sedation in human and veterinary medicine, made headlines when it was linked to the death of actor Matthew Perry, who by all accounts was abusing the drug at home rather than through supervised use in a clinical setting.
Appropriate clinical use of the drug has proven effective in treating anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and especially depression that is resistant to conventional treatment.
WATCH – Trump: AOC and Newsom’s incompetence was a bad look for the United States:
For example, the Ketamine Clinic of Los Angeles, one of the leading practices in the US, claims an 83 percent success rate in treating disorders using “infusion therapy,” which involves a series of six one-hour long treatments in its medically staffed clinic where patients experience mild hallucinations.
Stella offers not only ketamine infusion therapy in her clinics, but also other alternative therapies like transcranial magnetic stimulation and FDA-approved esketamine, a prescription nasal spray that is also used for depression.
AOC has historically demonstrated an interest in unconventional treatments. He has three times proposed legislation to make it easier to study psychedelics such as “magic mushrooms” for the treatment of mental illness.
“There are some Schedule-1 medications that provide moderate amounts of benefit to veterans and people suffering from PTSD and people struggling with depression and opioid addiction,” he said at a town hall in 2019.
In 2023 she cosponsored legislation led by Representative Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) to research the use of psychedelics to treat PTSD and traumatic brain injury in active-duty service members. It was signed into law.
However, critics question how campaign cash is appropriate for psychiatric treatment.
Paul Kamenaar, an attorney with the National Legal & Policy Center, said, “While I can understand why AOC would spend $18,000 for a woman whose characteristics include narcissistic personality disorder, treating her campaign contributions as expenses for personal use is a violation of federal campaign finance laws.” Post.
Kamenaar said, “Although she describes these expenditures as ‘leadership training,’ unlike many Democratic campaign consultants, Dr. Boyle has no expertise in that area.” “This appears to be another example of campaign contribution abuse.”
Dr. Boyle did not respond to this of post Request for comment.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times True Crime Best Seller house of secrets and nine other crime novels and non-fiction titles. Look lovellcauffiel.com For more information.
