On the one hand we want to be factual, on the other hand we don't want to discourage someone who is trying to recover from MDMA, so sorry if this gets anyone down. But I find it ironic that we are having this conversation in a thread concerning someone who is having problems after MDMA. These threads are actually very common and I speak for the people who have truly abused MDMA when I say that it does cause long term problems that often don't resolve completely with abstinence if the abuse is severe enough or if the abuser is young enough.
There is evidence that recovery is possible in the subcortical regions (even with abnormal re-innervation/function
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3224864/) but the dorsal neocortex likely remains de-innervated after abuse, it is very far from the original serotonin projections. Some closer parts of the brain are actually hyper-innervated after MDMA recovery, but just because some of the regions recover well doesn't mean we should make assumptions about the other regions. (Here is a study showing recovery of some regions
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16133393/ Mind you those were some of the areas that the monkey models showed hyper-reinnervation of). The monkey models showed that the dorsal neocortex remains de-innervated after abuse and the human studies confirm that there is increased cortical excitability, one study in particular showed increased cortical excitability with fMRI in users who were on average 1 year abstinent. This is likely due to a disinihibtion of the those areas that are normally inhibited by serotonin.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21326196/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3521982/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22147810/
I would argue that the users do indeed have deficits. The working and verbal memory deficits are the most consistent. Here are some good studies.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16510479 - "Ex-ecstasy users' verbal memory showed no sign of improvement even after over 2.5 years of abstinence and thus may represent persistent functional consequences of MDMA neurotoxicity."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23660456
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2789420/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3621736/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3224864/ <-- (Thalamus is one of the regions that was shown to be hyper-innervated after MDMA recovery, yet still shows abnormal function)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3198867/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3047479/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23241648
And here are some studies on the more non petri dish aspects
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10867552
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17082969 <--- Meta Analysis
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3604193/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19955499
When I say the poison is in the dose what I really mean is that the dose will decide whether or not there will be any functional consequences, with MDMA (as opposed to water) there will be some degree of damage with any dose. The thing to remember is some people use MDMA for years without problems while others have extreme problems within a couple mild doses, this might be related to a genetic vulnerability (Likely a SERT mutation that has been significantly associated with adverse reactions to MDMA and more behavioral consequences) but to say that MDMA abuse isn't harming people likely isn't true, you just need to look at the studies that really examine memory for example. You might consider that studies are essentially designed to find the small differences amongst different populations, these populations might not be able to spot these deficits on their own, and a deficit in these populations might even make perceiving a deficit even harder for these people. That's great that you exercise btw, keep it up. But I think you might find your friends (even if they are doing okay now) might be at increased risk for neurodegenerative disease. A small effect now might be very large when cells are lost with age, deficits might be revealed with time if they aren't already revealed in the minutiae.
I hope you'll understand that part of my fear of underplaying MDMA's neurotoxicity is that not all use is responsible adult use.
If the word going around is that it doesn't insult the CNS then I think more people will be likely to abuse it to the point where it does harm the CNS. I fell into this scenario myself when I was young. My peers were convinced that the serotonin concerns were false (Because they had heard about the Ricuarte/Meth study that everyone holds up so often) so all other concerns vanished essentially, I would compare it to Cannabis actually. The original government studies were so overblown that nobody took them seriously. Fast forward to the present day where we now know that THC is harmful to the adolescent brain. Now we are learning there is much more to MDMA neurotoxicity than the serotonin deficits, and there are indeed many studies out there.
I wouldn't be taking the time to type this if you weren't associated with a harm reduction organization, but I hope you'll find it apparent that admitting that there is some level of harm being done when people abuse MDMA takes us one step closer to being able to do something about reversing the harm and preventing the abuse in the first place.
Hmm, I was only replying because you quoted me. I'll go over your post more later when I have time. I'm not saying it's frowned upon to talk about harm reduction, and my intention wasn't to discourage it. I've seen the state of this board and haven't said anything about it openly so far. My problem is when someone quotes me and wants to bring up this dead discussion over again. This has been talked about rather frequently here, if you search with the search engine. I'm not going to continue this past this post, because you are firm with your belief and that is fine.
It doesn't seem that anyone notable (like say, a BLer) ever asked about help from mdma abuse. I'm certain that I'm the one who brought it up, and tbh I'm annoyed as hell that it keeps being brought back up constantly as if all these GLers suddenly started jumping on the wagon, claiming to have done the same. What is the point of bringing it back up at least weekly? Personally, it feels like I'm being judged to the extreme about something I did six years ago. Think about how long ago that is.
It is extremely easy to just create accounts here and flood this board with the same crap every week, if not everyday. I'm not saying that that's what's going on here, but it does seem like that.
Not only that, I've been aware that the claims of neurotoxicity that are there, and obviously there are studies to back it up. I've seen some of them quite a while back. It's clear that studies on the benefits of mdma are close to zero, and we all know the reason for this. MAPS is the closest there is at the moment. One day, the drug will be fairly studied equally for its positive and negative consequences of usage. Every illegal substance is going to have a ton of studies done to try to rip out every single negative consequence possible. Despite that, I know for sure that I have seen studies claiming the opposite of your argument (that mdma has not been proven to be neurotoxic), so I'll edit this post with the relevant links later on to "back up" my claims. In the mean time, it's probably not hard for anyone to search for themselves either.
It's annoying having to do this because I honestly don't care whether either of us are right or wrong. All I can say with certainty is that, basically, I'm doing fine and so are a few others I know. It's annoying dealing with someone who doesn't even understand me to try to convince me otherwise, given that my life is going well for me. I'm not sure whether you're trying to get a reaction out of me or not, but I honestly don't see anyone but GLers who this might apply to. I'm not going to read something on BL and then automatically think something is wrong, when I don't perceive anything to be wrong. Does that make sense to you? I can only base that off of what I'm able to do, in reality, and the things that I get done in my day-to-day life. That is how I judge myself, every day. That includes my general mood throughout the day, how I feel and whether I have difficulty doing anything I'm supposed to do. (Neither do I concern myself with other people's businesses and judge them negatively, it's just not my thing and it's rude as hell). I also took note of whether anyone, who truly knows me well, can see anything off about me ever since I used to roll too often. No one had a clue. This isn't "scientific" obviously, this is purely based on my own experience.
I know that mdma helped me control my ego, and see my life in a completely different way. I became way more appreciative of people's efforts around me, and tried to see the situation in the other person's point of view, before I think something of them. I talked a lot more and became straightforward. With the way it forcibly showed me my own weaknesses, I don't think such a change would've occurred for a long time and definitely not as easily.
I'm not saying this is aimed at me, but I don't see anyone but myself on who this applies to. You can believe what you want, and I'm not going to try to dissuade you in what you believe. But from what I can discern from myself, others and because of the fact that I know myself better than anyone else, I'm not going to all of a sudden start to freak out about my mdma use from six years ago. I'm not even sure how logical that is, given the fact that so much of life has finally fallen into place and I've honestly been happy IRL, outside of BL. Besides the few diamonds in the rough here, the community, from MY point of view, is extremely negative towards me. All users that I do not recognize their sns are 100% at it, and you are no exception obviously. It's why I do read up on here but I don't post much anymore. There's little point considering what I've been dealing with. It's unlike any other member here, from what I can see.
All that aside, I'll update this post later when I feel like wasting my time doing so. Even when I update this post, I'm not going to think all of a sudden that I'm right and you're wrong. Again, you can believe what you want and I'll do the same.
Edit: http://www.drugtext.org/pdf/Dance/party-drugs-clubbing/why-mdma-should-not-have-been-made-illegal.pdf
I'll find more later on this front...
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1038/sj.bjp.0704825/full
"Though the FDA claims that its refusal to permit experimentation is based on concern for the health of the volunteers, after more than 11 million doses of MDMA have been taken in the United States, the literature does not contain even one case of an individual suffering neurological symptoms linked to MDMA-related brain damage."
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00702-007-0715-7
Pertinent because of the fact that I smoked weed during mdma trips 99% of the time. Perhaps this is why myself and others are doing fine.
Double edit: Didn't think I'd have to clarify this, but I only speak of my own usage/experience. It's not representative of anyone else's, especially the amount, except for friends that none of you know. You weren't there, so you don't know anything that happened, which is why it's useless to guess. The truth always comes out.