The Agony and the Ecstasy: The Quiet Mission to Fight PTSD With Psychedelic Drugs

Michael and Annie Mithoefer’s patients come to their clinic in Charleston, South Carolina, as a last resort on a grueling tour of duty. Unable to shake what they’ve experienced, witnessed or carried out, on orders or otherwise, in the suburbs of Baghdad or the valleys of Helmand Province, they’re wracked by the relentless mental sirens of post-traumatic stress. They’ve sought out the husband-wife team because no other therapy has made it all stop. They’re up for anything.

The Mithoefer’s are upfront: should trauma not surface at the patient’s behest, well, then at a certain point they’ll make it surface. The process can be painful, and spans hours, so patients arrive mid-morning. After final “set” preparations each subject is handed one small, curious capsule. It’s 10AM and they’re ingesting ecstasy.

The daylong sessions that follow are part of a small, open-label Phase II study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for post-traumatic stress disorder in war veterans. The experiment examines how 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, better known as ecstasy, may alleviate the crippling, long-term horrors of “chronic, treatment-resistant, combat-related PTSD” when administered at low doses and in controlled settings.

This is the leading edge of a 10-year, $10 million push by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies for Food and Drug Administration approval of MDMA as prescription medicine. Rick Doblin, the founder and director of MAPS, envisions a day when ecstasy can be picked up at the corner drug store.

It’s not clear how close that day is, given lingering taboos and stigmas attached to anything that strays too close to the roiling, unchartered waters of the “mind-altering.” For now, the Mithoefer’s will score MDMA from the only licensed dealer in the U.S., a Purdue University chemist. They’re doled 30-, 75-, and 125-mg capsules from the only government-approved batch of ecstasy ever made, in 1985, when the drug was criminalized. (This product is routinely tested for purity, and remains over 99 percent pure MDMA.) This current study is double blind, so no one’s privy to the dosage – 125, 75, or 30, the low-level active placebo – they’re taking from the outset of their trips. Then again, it’s not too difficult to put a finger on just how hard you’re rolling on ecstasy.

Once medicated, patients are encouraged to lay back, to focus inward. Some opt for eyeshades and headphones. Others simply close their eyes, favoring the quiet. Everyone waits.

http://motherboard.vice.com/2011/8/...-mission-to-fight-ptsd-with-psychedelic-drugs

good read thanks for the link

sorta bullshit that MDMA is still schedule1 "no medical value" and yet the FDA is currently testing its medicinal value
similar to cannabis being shceudle 1 yet marinol/dronabinol (rx THC) are being allowed and sativex (thc + cbd tincutre made form plant extract) is seeking approval

Interesting.

I wonder about the wisdom of giving people low doses to get at trauma.
It seems that medium or high doses would be much more effective, since all low doses do is feel like a little speed.

But it is really a shame that "Active substance abusers and those with psychotic disorders or type 1 bipolar disorder are rejected. " Those people need the therapy just as much as anyone else.
If they are self-medicating with illegal drugs, it is because the pain is too severe.
Aren't those the kind of people we should be helping the most?

Hoge noted that MDA (3,4-Methylenedioxyamphetamine) and its related compounds have significant, immutable biological effects. “They have irreversible bindings on some receptors in the brain,” he explained, “which can potentially result in maybe greater or longer-term side effects for an individual.” SSRIs, he claimed, are reversible.

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Is this true?
Does anyone know about this?

Slim, the high dose is 125mg, that's enough surely? And it's still early days, they have to show it works in people with PTSD without any potentially confounding factors. I'm sure it would be useful for a lot of other 'disorders', but that's for other studies to find out.

“I don’t know much about it,” he admitted – Hoge noted that MDA (3,4-Methylenedioxyamphetamine) and its related compounds have significant, immutable biological effects. “They have irreversible bindings

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lol, I don't see how it could bind irreversibly, and even if it did it wouldn't be a long-term issue as receptors are always being broken down and re-synthesised.

I really don't get that guy:

[Hoge] added that a lot of newer-class antipsychotics are being developed with fewer and fewer negative side effects

Hoge not only suggested that a whole class of antipsychotics – like Risperdal, Seroquel, Geodon, and Abilify – can’t top placebos

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This article makes me wish i still had access to pure molly... or a time machine. I would repeatedly go back to May 2004.

skillet said:

Slim, the high dose is 125mg, that's enough surely?

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Yea, that would be enough, but the mid-level dose was too small (I think I remember it was 70mg?) to convince me that it would have empathogenic effects. For me, such a dose would be basically wasted.

Maybe, but it's a trial, they're not just trying to treat people but find out how to treat them. A dose dependant increase in effectiveness, and use of an active placebo give more evidence that the effect is actually due to the drug.

It's ridiculous really that it took $10 million to get to this point...

I wouldn't mind getting in touch with - according to the article - the only authorized manufacturer of pharmaceutical grade mdma in the country.

"I'll take a family pack please."