Newly public financial records show that liberal Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) spent nearly $19,000 in campaign dollars last year on a doctor who specializes in controversial ketamine therapy.
According to The New York Post, the progressive lawmaker hired Boston-based Dr. Brian Boyle, the chief psychiatric officer at Stella, a chain of mental health clinics focusing on “novel” therapies popular with Hollywood and Wall Street.
Shrinking socialists: AOC spends $19K on psychiatrist known for ketamine therapy https://t.co/EReLloVtlu pic.twitter.com/gaLxNqoLKA
— New York Post (@nypost) March 21, 2026
Her campaign paid Boyle $11,550 in March 2025, another $2,800 in May, and $4,375 in October for a total of $18,725, according to Federal Election Commission records obtained by The Post.
The expenses were marked as “leadership training and consulting.”
Boyle, a Harvard-trained doctor, calls himself an “interventional psychiatrist” and specializes in unorthodox methods for treatment-resistant depression, PTSD and anxiety.
He’s considered a “leading authority” on ketamine, the controversial horse tranquilizer, which garnered national attention after it was given to “Friends” star Matthew Perry in the month leading up to his tragic death.
“I just saw the incredible power of what these treatments could do,” Boyle said during a podcast appearance last year about getting into the ketamine business.
“It’s a ton of fun helping patients get better.”
However, critics have slammed AOC’s use of campaign funds for what is obviously a personal choice.
“While I can understand why AOC would spend $18,000 for a shrink whose specialties include narcissistic personality disorders, using her campaign contributions for what appears to be an expense for personal use violates federal campaign finance laws,” slammed Paul Kamenar, counsel to the National Legal and Policy Center.
“While she describes these expenses as ‘leadership training,’ Dr. Boyle has no expertise in that area, unlike several Democratic campaign consultants,” Kamenar added.
“This looks like yet another example of misuse of campaign contributions.”
This is not the first time that AOC has been vocal about her use of drugs.
AOC once campaigned to end the federal prohibition of marijuana in 2018, has three times proposed legislation to make it easier to study magic mushrooms and other psychedelics.
In 2019, she introduced an amendment to allow the feds to spend taxpayer money on studying the medical potential of psilocybin, ecstasy and other drugs to treat mental illnesses, calling the early research “promising.”
“It’s well past time we take drug use out of criminal consideration and into medical consideration,” she tweeted at the time.
The amendment was overwhelmingly rejected then, even by her Democratic colleagues, and failed again when she tried a second time in 2021.
Boyle’s clinic also offers other treatments popular with the 1 Percent, like stellate ganglion block, an anesthetic injected into a nerve cluster in the neck to calm the body’s fight-or-flight response. Billionaires like Bob Parsons, who’s battled PTSD since returning from the Vietnam War, have raved about the treatment.
“Celebrities tend to be more inclined to be on the hunt for highly effective solutions across beauty, health, mental health, nutrition and so on,” Boyle said in an interview last year about the treatment.
Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment at the time of publication.