Scientists promote MDMA's therapeutic effects

Move over Prozac, it's ecstasy's turn; stigmatized as the `nightclub drug,' some scientists are promoting the benefits of ecstasy as a treatment for depression. But at what long-term costs to the brain? (Nation: psychotropic drugs).(MDMA research)
Author/s: Brandon Spun - INSIGHT
Issue: April 15, 2002
The first U.S.-approved tests on the therapeutic effects of MDMA, the active chemical in the "nightclub drug" known as ecstasy, may begin in a few months, 17 years after it was made illegal and 90 years after it was invented. At issue is whether this powerful neurotoxin can be an effective tool for therapy. What is certain is that scientists know as much about MDMA's long-term effects on the brain as they do about most commonly prescribed psychotropics -- that is, very little.
A recent Fox News special on the lasting effects of ecstasy had a psychiatrist from Emory University in Atlanta displaying before-and-after slides of an ecstasy user's brain. He claimed the slides demonstrated lasting damage. But when questioned by INSIGHT, the expert knew neither whose research he had presented nor details of the alleged tests. Misinformation and mythology, critics say, are as common in the war on drugs as in the mental-health community.
Many drugs have unintended side effects, but while TV commercials quietly tag on messages that say a pill might cause heart problems or that pregnant women should not handle them, these warnings pale in comparison to the potential dangers of mood-altering drugs. Here are a few side effects of one psychotropic: paralysis, coma, hysteria, suicidal idealization and violent behaviors, arrhythmia, gastrointestinal hemorrhage, ulcers, colitis, hepatitis, incontinence, gout, goiter, hyperthyroidism, eczema, psoriasis, osteoporosis, abortion, glaucoma, deafness, taste loss and sexual dysfunction.
That drug is Prozac, the most widely prescribed pharmaceutical in the country. And though its mood-altering chemical compound has been used by millions, little is reported about its potentially deadly side effects. Its manufacturers get by with claims that the effects listed above are rare, occurring in less than one in 1,000 users. But, as INSIGHT has reported, psychotropics often have been linked with cases in which people have been involved in bizarre and deadly incidents.
Prozac, as well as Paxil and Zoloft, are serotonin selective reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) that increasingly have been prescribed for depression. Serotonin, a neurotransmitter, is a chemical that facilitates communication within the brain. It is contended that serotonin allows one to experience happiness when it is released into the synapses, the empty spaces between nerve cells. Antidepressants are supposed to prevent the reabsorption of serotonin so that the "happiness experience" can last longer.
If so, people for whom SSRIs are prescribed should have lower levels of serotonin than happy people. But there is little evidence of this. "The categories of mental illness are so porous as to allow everyday unhappiness to pass into the category of a more significant disease," says Ronald Dworkin, a physician at the Hudson Institute in Indianapolis. The way these psychotropics affect the emotions is more mysterious, and more threatening, than practitioners who use them have dared to admit.
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Great read Haste. Bring on the trials!

absolute classic ive seen the effects of zoloft on a person over the course of 5 weeks. this person went from walking around a room and not sayin anything( so depressed he couldnt talk). To being normal, talking, happy, recalling information he previously couldnt. Now ladies and getlemen i cant see why mdma, a serotonin releasing type of drug cant be used in the same way as zoloft at low doses

This is the result of the hard work put in by the likes of familiars such as Rick Dobson and MAPS, and the perhaps not so well-known Martha Rosenbaum and the Lindesmith Institute for Drug Reform. These people have campaigned strongly for declassification of MDMA, necessary for such trials to begin.
If you can get hold of the Ecstasy Conference (Feb. 2001) audio tapes, you can listen to moving accounts from people involved in MDMA assisted therapies. It was following this conference that the DEA consented to forming a special category for MDMA. To qualify for schedule 1 listing, a drug has to:
a) have potential for abuse
b) have no medical use.
Therefore MDMA needed top be declassified from schedule 1 in order to recommence the therapy first begun in the 80’s. The DEA, insistent MDMA would not be scheduled so as to allow possible “over prescribing” or other avenues of increased availability, decided to make a new class for MDMA.
A sad note perhaps is the time it has taken for this to occur. It is reported that only the first few encounters with MDMA are considered beneficial with this therapy. In other words, if you haven’t done MDMA before, such therapy achieves far greater results.
The fact that it has taken over 10 years of dedicated fighting to finally be able to implement this aid, means it is way too late for many people who have already overdone MDMA’s recreational value. Many of these people may have benefited greatly from being introduced to MDMA through a mixture of psychiatry and psychology. The “magic” of the substance for most users is lost amongst those first few encounters. Perhaps if MDMA had been introduced to society in this form – as a therapy - it could have fulfilled its potential and allowed these disciplines to adopt other singular use combination therapies.
MDMA had the potential (and perhaps still has) to unite pharmacology with psychology. For those fucked up kids who have the opportunity to be counseled with the aid of this drug before it’s abused recreationally, it could mean a normal life without the crux of everyday antidepressants.