FDA approves Ecstasy : New treatment of Iraq war veterans with resistant PTSD

I don't think it's been pointed out that the headline for this article is false. The FDA hasn't approved MDMA for PTSD, or for anything else. No physician in the US can prescribe MDMA for anything.

I'm gonna try to get a doc to write me a script for MDMA just to see the look on the face of the pharmacists at Walgreens; it'd make a hell of a youtube video trying to get that script filled.
 
Quantum_Think said:
MDMA's dark side is the fact that it gives you a temporary induced state of false well-being. When your on ecstacy, you feel good for pretty much no reason.
Failed two classes ....no problem, I'm ROLLING!!
i have no friends and nobody likes me.... pop a pokeball and suddenly i love everyone and everyone loves me!!
I don't normally feel good so i need drugs to make me feel better!!
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You can say the same thing about alcohol - except to more of an extent. Ecstasy has a way of accepting things, while alcohol just sweeps it under the rug. So while your statement holds true, it would still cause less harm then there already is.

Lets say that MDMA was legalized and just about everyone is taking it. Fuck yeah, this sounds great, rolling all the time always happy in love with everything people holding hands kissing light shows blah blah. No matter where we live in, what kind of shitty-ass job we hold, and whatever else is going on in the world, we simply would NOT CARE about any of this - because we have our ecstacy!
Government raises income tax to 50%? Awesome, as long as my MDMA is still legal!
Food shortage? Eat a couple pills, that hunger will go away!
The roof on my house is falling apart.... no problem i looovvveeee the rain!
Wait, i don't even live in a house anymore... i like sleeping on the grainy sidewalk, feels good when im rolling!

If we always feel happy then there is no reason for us as humans to strive to achieve more and improve our non drug-induced state.
MDMA is just as much of an escape drug as heroin or cocaine or meth. they make you feel good when you would not otherwise.

The only way to bear a messed up society is to be messed up

PS. i think "opiate of the masses" was originally attributed to religion. but i guess it can be attributed to anything that gives people a false sense of security, like religion does.
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I doubt any of this will actually happen. People can't "drown their sorrows" in ecstasy. An ecstasy abuser will realize what he/she is doing to his/herself and simply stop and get his/her life back on track.

And even if that would happen, society is already messed up, who cares if you live on the street? Who cares if your roof is broken? If you're happy and you're not fucking anyone else over that's all that really matters.

Don't forget that the only reason you live and strive for things is for to sustain the inevitable death of yourself and the human species. So why not enjoy it? It's better to live happy and short than striving for an infinitely far mirage.
 
sheepie said:
It's better to live happy and short than striving for an infinitely far mirage.
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It's not that I disagree with anything that you say, sheepie, but I thought it strange to read this particular sentence on a Harm Reduction website... I just think you ought to consider rewording it somehow ;)

HR... c'est la vie...

~ vaya
 
Quantum_Think said:
Lets say that MDMA was legalized and just about everyone is taking it. Fuck yeah, this sounds great, rolling all the time always happy in love with everything people holding hands kissing light shows blah blah. No matter where we live in, what kind of shitty-ass job we hold, and whatever else is going on in the world, we simply would NOT CARE about any of this - because we have our ecstacy!
Government raises income tax to 50%? Awesome, as long as my MDMA is still legal!
Food shortage? Eat a couple pills, that hunger will go away!
The roof on my house is falling apart.... no problem i looovvveeee the rain!
Wait, i don't even live in a house anymore... i like sleeping on the grainy sidewalk, feels good when im rolling!

If we always feel happy then there is no reason for us as humans to strive to achieve more and improve our non drug-induced state.
MDMA is just as much of an escape drug as heroin or cocaine or meth. they make you feel good when you would not otherwise.

The only way to bear a messed up society is to be messed up

PS. i think "opiate of the masses" was originally attributed to religion. but i guess it can be attributed to anything that gives people a false sense of security, like religion does.
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You can't solve a food shortage by killing the hungry off, and if you could then mdma wouldn't solve that, stimulants would.

I've seen probably every dark aspect ecstasy can have and even with the sometimes dark times I've never really seen it as an escape.


Vaya said:
It's not that I disagree with anything that you say, sheepie, but I thought it strange to read this particular sentence on a Harm Reduction website... I just think you ought to consider rewording it somehow ;)

HR... c'est la vie...

~ vaya
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I'd rather live a shorter life than stay in the dark. It's pretty easy to be really happy and live a long time too though.
 
We have been doing it in Israel for about 12 years. It has shown amazing results but only amongst subject that are totally psychoactively naive. I applaud the FDA allowing it, but I haven't even begun to examine the issue (in American terms) so cannot say that much about it. I would wager off the top of my head that the FDA is only approving Trials and not the actual therapy.

That said,PTSD is a real problem with American servicemen (and women),much more than it is in Israel so what works for us may not work for Americans,it has to be fasioned culturally,etc. Still, a step in the right direction IS a step in the right direction.
 
Rachamim: so in Israel you can get ecstasy psychotherapy? Do you have a (non-source) link with more info on that?

rachamim said:
I would wager off the top of my head that the FDA is only approving Trials and not the actual therapy.
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That's it. What the FDA actually approved is a trial protocol, which is a very specific and restrictive document--usually over a hundred pages of procedures that must be rigidly adhered to. It's designed to ensure the safety of the trial subjects (the happy "labrats") as well as to generate scientifically meaningful data.

Most likely the trial design calls for 50% of the subjects to receive placebo and 50% MDMA. Neither the subjects nor the researchers will ever be told who received what. In fact, no human will know this, as the data will be anonymized, encrypted and indexed by computers. In order to break the "blind" (if a subject's life or health absolutely depends on the knowledge of whether or not that subject received MDMA--unlikely) a code will be needed, and that code leads to a prime number that's thousands of digits long and is one of the two prime factors of a composite number that's millions of digits long: all stored in a digital vat guarded by humorless Canadian men with asymmetrical eyeglasses.

In other words, Americans are extremely far away from being able to go to a psychiatrist for an MDMA-assisted psychotherapy session. Thought about another way, I am billions of times more likely to accidentally fart the Moonlit Sonata than to be prescribed ecstasy by 2020.
 
this makes me very happy

nuke said:
One of my friends is addictive to MDMA and it has almost killed her on several occasions. She was injecting it almost everyday in high doses and continues to use it despite being basically non-functional for the past three years (unable to eat, unable to sleep, unable to work). If that's not an addiction, I'm not sure what is.
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That is a very extreme circumstance... outlyers like that really have no bearing on how MDMA effects most people.

Captain.Heroin said:
There's more drugs that should be legalized first for more obvious reasons (i.e. physical health).

Additionally, I think LSD and mushrooms would be a better place to start
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Mushrooms for PTSD? Really? Mushrooms are so confusing to me im left with more questions than answers at the end. I really dont see how mushrooms can be effective for PTSD. IME mushrooms (and other extremely potent psyches) have more potential to cause PTSD than to cure it. With MDMA there is a much lower chance of having a bad trip.

While the neurotoxicity of MDMA is definitely a serious issue I think the lucid awareness while you're on MDMA is what makes it have so much potential for PTSD. The negitave effects of a few spaced out uses of MDMA is almost negligible.
 
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how well would placebo work for this though?
if your pupils are small, no way in hell are you rolling.
 
LSDMDMA&8693088 said:
how well would placebo work for this though?
if your pupils are small, no way in hell are you rolling.
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This is a good point. Most of the previous studies don't use placebo arms, but instead give one group of patients a low dose and the other group a full dose. The only recent placebo-controlled study is the one this article mentions in the past tense (the one where ecstasy was 3x as effective as placebo).

That's #2 here.

Compare to #1 and #4, which gave patients a total dose of either 187.5 mg (experimental arm) or 37.5 mg (control arm).
 
Approves how? Its been approved for MAPS research a long time ago. Is MDMA now considered a pharmaceutical? Who is manufacturing it, Mercke again? Are we gonna be trying to get scripts for 25mg mdma pills?

^Obviously Im jumping ahead here, and I'm being sorta sarcastic cuz I've been hearing this for a while.

This is truly groundbreaking news and the FDA has made a very positive decision in moving this therapy forward. People who have suffered severe trauma often live their entire lifetime without relief from their disorder. Their crushing symptoms include overwhelming anxiety, flash-back like memories and severe depression, among others.
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Its like, as if this was not a known fact. But since it is "approved" I guess MDMA is not schedule I anymore. Shouldnt that be the case? Btw, isnt methamphetamine schedule I? If not, what about Desoxyn (Schedule 1= no medical use). Medical marijuana is available, but marijuana still has "no medical use". And Xyrem doesnt get GHB out of schedule I even if its the same substance under a different name.

Anyone wanna shed some light on the bullshit schedule system?

EDIT: I guess the article is referring to the success of this first MAPS test, but it seems like the article is implying that MDMA is now less controlled, or more accepted. Maybe its just me
 
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People are reading into this WAAAAY too much.

No, MDMA hasn't been approved by the FDA, the thread title is wrong.

No, you won't be able to get a prescription for MDMA, because it's NOT A STANDARD PHARMACEUTICAL DRUG.

The abuse potential is limited by the fact that you WON'T be walking down to your pharmacy to get a nice 100mg pill. Your therapist will get it, and you will have access to it maybe 4 times a year, IF you suffer from severe PTSD.

THIS IS NOT A DAILY SSRI/SNRI/BENZO STYLE DRUG.

As I've said many times in this thread already, there is no direct chemical mechanism of action that can be traced to the MDMA that magically makes you better. It is simply a psychological healing that is aided with the psychedelic key - MDMA.

People won't be legally walking round with 500mg MDMA on them because that's their next weeks worth of medication.

If used as it's intended, 1000mg MDMA is one persons therapy for 2 years. It'll be no more legal to walk around with that much MDMA than it will to walk around with 7200x10mg Diazepam.

Besides, that's missing the crucial point - the patient will have NO ACCESS to their MDMA.

If the only time they'll be taking it is when they're in a therapy session with their therapist, then WHY would anyone need a script for MDMA?

Jesus christ, I wish some of you would just fucking think before you open your mouths.
 
To answer your questions:

Methamphetamine is schedule II in the US; OK for medical use but highly abusable.

GHB is schedule I but schedule III when used for "applications under section 505 of Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act" (i.e. Xyrem prescribed and distributed and used as prescribed)

MJ is schedule I. This is why the federales could still harass those dispensaries in Cali all the time.

The article is indeed a little sensationally written, but hey, it's still good news.

The scheduling system in the US is really weird to me. What is the validity of weighing in a substances medical use in drug offences? Is trafficking heroin worse then trafficking sufentanil?
 
HerrSchnaufer said:
If the only time they'll be taking it is when they're in a therapy session with their therapist, then WHY would anyone need a script for MDMA?
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The paper the order is written on is a metaphor. The point is the doctor's hands are tied. So long as it remains schedule 1, the doctor runs afoul of the DEA and must get the DEA's permission to administer the compound, which for schedule 1 can only be obtained ad hoc (for a certain substance and a certain purpose). This is not the case wirh schedules 2-5.

This may seem trivial, but we're at the research stage atm. The rate limiting step for research on schedule 1 compounds is the DEA's lassitude (they take forever to give you a yes or no). This is the reason that at the moment, there are only a couple dozen Americans participating in trials involving MDMA (compare to tens of thousands trialing new antipsychotics). The process is unnecessarily glacial: it retards progress and holds innovation at bay.

We emergency-schedule substances of concern, but there is no process for fast-tracking a promising substance up from the doldrums of schedule 1.

And think: are you incapable of reaping benefit from MDMA without an analyst by your side?
 
seep said:
The paper the order is written on is a metaphor. The point is the doctor's hands are tied. So long as it remains schedule 1, the doctor runs afoul of the DEA and must get the DEA's permission to administer the compound, which for schedule 1 can only be obtained ad hoc (for a certain substance and a certain purpose). This is not the case wirh schedules 2-5.

This may seem trivial, but we're at the research stage atm. The rate limiting step for research on schedule 1 compounds is the DEA's lassitude (they take forever to give you a yes or no). This is the reason that at the moment, there are only a couple dozen Americans participating in trials involving MDMA (compare to tens of thousands trialing new antipsychotics). The process is unnecessarily glacial: it retards progress and holds innovation at bay.

We emergency-schedule substances of concern, but there is no process for fast-tracking a promising substance up from the doldrums of schedule 1.

And think: are you incapable of reaping benefit from MDMA without an analyst by your side?
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No no no, I think you misunderstood me. I'm merely coming back at those claiming it's going to be the next scourge on our society as people will be popping their MDMA prescription 5 times daily ... It doesn't work like that, you won't have daily access to MDMA.

It being in Schedule 1 is ridiculous, I can see that, especially since it's shown such positive results, and really does have an accepted medicinal use.

As for your last comment, yes, I'd say I was very capable of reaping benefits without an analyst/therapist at my side, but were I to be using it for PTSD or other mental/cognitive health issues, I'd really want someone to guide me through.

Look at it another way - I don't know about you, but certainly whenever I take a substance that is new to me, I always like to have someone that's experienced with the compound at hand, or at least someone that's taken it before. Not because I can't enjoy the substance or learn from it without someone telling me what to look for, but rather because it's a type of psychological peace of mind knowing someone else has been through what you're going through.
 
FractalStructure said:
Approves how? Its been approved for MAPS research a long time ago. Is MDMA now considered a pharmaceutical? Who is manufacturing it, Mercke again? Are we gonna be trying to get scripts for 25mg mdma pills?

^Obviously Im jumping ahead here, and I'm being sorta sarcastic cuz I've been hearing this for a while.



Its like, as if this was not a known fact. But since it is "approved" I guess MDMA is not schedule I anymore. Shouldnt that be the case? Btw, isnt methamphetamine schedule I? If not, what about Desoxyn (Schedule 1= no medical use). Medical marijuana is available, but marijuana still has "no medical use". And Xyrem doesnt get GHB out of schedule I even if its the same substance under a different name.

Anyone wanna shed some light on the bullshit schedule system?

EDIT: I guess the article is referring to the success of this first MAPS test, but it seems like the article is implying that MDMA is now less controlled, or more accepted. Maybe its just me
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In Spain we have a bigger mistery. All drugs but ketamine, amphetamine and barbiturals (and so on... I meant more likely psychedelic drugs), are listed as Scheduled I.
That means that MDMA, Cocaine, Heroine, "C-I, DOM, DOET, MDA, LSD, Psilocybin and so on, synthetic or not, are as Scheduled I drugs.

All of them but 2C-B.8o

That's a real mistery as long as you can't use 2C-B nor any psychedelic in no therapeutic enviroment, nor in your privacy at your home, or no where.

WHY 2C-B???

And why don't they do anything with it??

My country is so wonderful that only here I can expect something like that: totally stupid (more than usual I mean).:p
 
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