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Prosocial and Less Neurotoxic MDMA Alternatives?

Madrus

Madrus

Bluelighter
Joined
Feb 5, 2012
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I was reading this article which stated that MDMA, due to it's "prosocial" effects, could be used "as a potential primary treatment for the social dysfunction."
These therapeutic effects are what I'm looking for, but health effects of MDMA worry me.

So what other empathogens exist that are proven to be less neurotoxic while also "generating empathy, openness, and the most positive of social experiences", as they put it.
 
No other drug is likely to be a substitute for MDMA if you want the therapeutic effects that MAPS has found.

In the MAPS studies, MDMA is administered 2-3 times, one month apart, at a roughly 125 mg dose, in a living room setting and with the presence of at least one therapist. In cooperation with FDA, DEA, etc, they have established that this regimen satisfies draconian safety standards. What is it exactly that worries you?

You should be aware that "proven to be less neurotoxic" is a condition that will be hard to satisfy, since MDMA neurotoxicity has not been demonstrated in this context.
 
Madrus said:
So what other empathogens exist that are proven to be less neurotoxic while also "generating empathy, openness, and the most positive of social experiences", as they put it.
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before you could prove that other substances are less neurotoxic, you'd first have to prove that mdma is neurotoxic with recreational doses in humans. the most convincing pieces of evidence towards neurotoxicity have been disproven in the last years. we now know that they used around 10x higher doses of mdma than they should have in the animal studies or alternatively they used animals with a completely different metabolism so that none of the results could be tranferred over to humans. if you use animals with a comparable metabolism and give them doses that result in similar plasma levels and effects humans get, you observe no neurotoxicity but just transient downregulation of serotonin receptors/transporters.
of course that doesn't mean that we know that mdma isn't neurotoxic, but it means that we have no trustworthy evidence to suggest that it is at the moment.


the big problem with mdma replacements is that we know a whole lot less about them than about mdma itself. with mdma you've had decades of government funded scientists (ahem ricaurte and collegues...) trying their best to prove that it's horribly toxic. but we also have people who have used it for decades, so we know pretty well what long term consequences mdma use has. with other empathogens we just don't know. they might be more toxic or less toxic or they might have some completely different additional health consequences that no one has though of up to now. and we aren't going to see much research on them in the near future either, partly because there are so many of them.
 
Madrus said:
I was reading this article which stated that MDMA, due to it's "prosocial" effects, could be used "as a potential primary treatment for the social dysfunction."
These therapeutic effects are what I'm looking for, but health effects of MDMA worry me.

So what other empathogens exist that are proven to be less neurotoxic while also "generating empathy, openness, and the most positive of social experiences", as they put it.
Click to expand...

MDMA is weird in that its probable effectiveness on social dysfunction improvement does not require constant everyday-dosing that something like a benzodiazepine program would require. Take it once and you might derive big and long lasting benefits. The reason why this is so is a reason that I don't think anyone knows.

If you are referring to something that one could take regularly and only derive prosocial benefits while the drug is still active, then I don't think any serotonin releaser could fit this role.
 
I was going to ask a similar question.

For the people saying MDMA is fine.. of course it isn't, MDMA is clearly horrible for you - I took it several times and after the last time I decided to take a year ling break.

There are a lot of RC empathogens that appear to have a better safety profile, x-apb etc.

I'd be interested in hearing which RC empathogens have the longest history of usage and (supposedly, anecedotally) the highest safety profile.
 
I know it's hard for this sub-forum to admit, but MDMA is probably not as healthy as you'd like it to be.

Found this thread discussing bk-MDMA and 4-MMC neurotoxicity, so do you guys think those would also have the therapeutic social effects as MDMA?
 
Madrus said:
I know it's hard for this sub-forum to admit, but MDMA is probably not as healthy as you'd like it to be.

Found this thread discussing bk-MDMA and 4-MMC neurotoxicity, so do you guys think those would also have the therapeutic social effects as MDMA?
Click to expand...
Both of those have far worse cardiovascular issues though.
 
AnanasBannana said:
For the people saying MDMA is fine.. of course it isn't, MDMA is clearly horrible for you - I took it several times and after the last time I decided to take a year ling break.
Click to expand...
i was talking specifically about neurotoxicity. there is no non-scientific method that can allow you to make any claim about neurotoxicity. including feeling horrible afterwards, which in itself is by no means an indicator if the substance is damaging or not.

no drug is healthy. if you ask the experts around david nutt mdma is at least less horrible for you than cannabis (though i don't necessarily agree with him on that point).

There are a lot of RC empathogens that appear to have a better safety profile, x-apb etc.
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the apbs have a pretty high affinity to and efficacy at the 5-ht2b receptor. it's likely that you'd run into heart issues (cardiac fibrosis) with a usage pattern that's fine with mdma.
 
I know it's hard for this sub-forum to admit, but MDMA is probably not as healthy as you'd like it to be.
Click to expand...

Can you be specific? I take MDMA 2-3 times per year, and overall I actually feel healthier for it. If there's something unhealthy about my use that I'm not aware of, I'd really like to hear it.

There are a lot of RC empathogens that appear to have a better safety profile, x-apb etc.
Click to expand...

I would be very curious to see the evidence that supports this.
 
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Oxytocin is interesting. As I recall it was investigated for social benefits, especially trust and empathy.

It could be that MDMA is mediating some effects via oxytocin.
 
AnanasBannana said:
I was going to ask a similar question.

For the people saying MDMA is fine.. of course it isn't, MDMA is clearly horrible for you -
Click to expand...

Thousands of people say otherwise.

At recreational doses (1.5-2 mg/kg) there is ZERO scientific evidence of any 'horrible effect'.
 
Madrus said:
I know it's hard for this sub-forum to admit, but MDMA is probably not as healthy as you'd like it to be.
Click to expand...

Please identify actual scientific evidence that MDMA use at doses of 1.5-2 mg/kg causes harm to the brain.

Evidence of changes in receptor affinity, density, and or SERT binding affinity in long term users -- are not evidence of harm, as the same changes occur after long term use of anti-depressants.

Of note: In at least one study of long term MDMA users, the MDMA group was more well adjusted than the control group
 
Enough vasoconstriction for purple knee syndrome is good enough for you?

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I've never seen anyone on MDMA with that
 
Methylone can be bad as far as latent sympathetic activation/ stimulation/insomnia even though it's probably not as neurotoxic as MDMA in animals, which could result in a less sustainable drug even though it appears less harmful to serotonin in animal studies.
 
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