A newly published study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for people diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder illustrates the striking results that led federal regulators to expedite the process for approving the drug, which has been banned since 1985, as a prescription medicine. One year after the last of three MDMA sessions, three-quarters of the 25 subjects who completed the study, reported today in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, no longer qualified for a PTSD diagnosis.
The subjects were randomly assigned to receive 40, 100, or 125 milligrams of MDMA, with the lowest dose serving as a placebo. At the beginning of the study, which was sponsored by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) and conducted in Boulder, Colorado, under the supervision of licensed professional counselor Marcela Ot'alora, the mean scores of the three subject groups on the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS) were 84.8, 94.4, and 93.5, respectively. After the first two sessions, those scores fell by an average of 11.5, 24.4, and 26.3 points, or by 14 percent, 26 percent, and 28 percent.
The subjects who received the low dose in the first two sessions were later given an opportunity to take active doses, after which their mean CAPS score fell by another 47 percent. All three groups of subjects showed continued improvement at the one-year followup, when the average CAPS score was 31, down from 92 at baseline. That's a drop of 66 percent. The highest possible CAPS score is 136, and the cutoff for a PTSD diagnosis is 50. By the end of the study, 19 of the 25 subjects (76 percent) were below that threshold.
