Ecstasy For Trauma Victims
Byrnzie
Posts: 21,037
Ecstasy is a wonderful drug. It changed my life for the better. Interesting to see that it's now being used to treat people with psychological problems:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/ ... f-comments
Ecstasy trial planned to test benefits for trauma victims
Scientists hope to overcome tabloid anger after US trial suggests clubbers' drug can bring dramatic improvements for PTSD sufferers
Sarah Boseley
guardian.co.uk, Friday 30 September 2011
Doctors are planning the first clinical trial of ecstasy in the UK, to see whether the drug can be beneficial to the traumatised survivors of child abuse, rape and war.
Ecstasy and other illegal drugs such as LSD and magic mushrooms are potentially useful in treating people with serious psychological disturbance who cannot begin to face up to their distress, some psychiatrists and therapists believe. But because of public fear and tabloid anger about illegal drugs, scientists say they find it almost impossible to explore their potential.
Professor David Nutt, the psychopharmacologist who used to head the government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs until he fell out with the Labour home secretary and was sacked, said: "I feel quite strongly that many drugs with therapeutic potential have been denied to patients and researchers because of the drugs regulation. The drugs have been made illegal in a vain attempt to stop kids using them, but people haven't thought about the negative consequences."
Nutt and the Taunton-based psychiatrist Dr Ben Sessa are two of the British scientists who hope to repeat an experiment on patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) undertaken in the US which, although small, was successful and has caused some in the scientific community to think what was until recently unthinkable. It involved 20 people who had been in therapy and on pills for an average of 19 years. Twelve were given MDMA – or 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, the chemical compound found, often adulterated, in ecstasy tablets. The rest had placebo pills but were later also given the chance to take MDMA. Each one had a therapy session, lying back in a reclining chair in a pleasant flower-decorated room in South Carolina, wearing an eyemask.
Sometimes they listened to music on headphones and sometimes they talked to the therapist, all the while thinking about the events that had caused such profound distress that they had been unable to revisit it in past psychotherapy sessions.
The response rate was a remarkable 83% – 10 out of the 12 showed significant improvement two months after the second of two MDMA therapy sessions. That compared with 25% of those on the placebo. There were no serious side-effects and no long-term problems.
"I expected it was going to be effective," said Michael Mithoefer, the psychiatrist who ran the US study and carried out the psychotherapy with his wife, Ann. "I suppose we wouldn't have done it otherwise. But I didn't necessarily expect we'd find such statistical significance in that number [of people]. That was the icing on the cake."
The high number of troops returning with PTSD from Afghanistan and Iraq is attracting special attention to the study in the US. Only one of the 20 was a veteran, while the rest had suffered childhood sexual abuse, rape or other kinds of assault. Mithoefer's next study will be on veterans alone.
Nutt said PTSD is "an extraordinarily disabling condition and we don't have any really effective treatments. In order to deal with trauma, you have to be able to re-engage with the memory and then deal with it. For many people, as soon as the memory comes into consciousness, so does the fear and disgust".
Mithoefer said the participants did not appear to have joined the trial in hopes of some sort of high. "I don't think that was much of a factor at all. Some people were referred by their therapist and had never taken any drugs and were quite anxious about the whole thing and for them it was a last resort.
" Interestingly, several people said after their session: 'I don't know why they call this ecstasy' – because it was not an ecstatic experience. They were revisiting the trauma. It was very difficult and painful work, but the ecstasy gave them the feeling they could do it."
People spoke of getting past a barrier. One said: "I feel like I'm walking in a place I've needed to go for so long and just didn't know how to get there.
"I feel like I know myself better than I ever have before. Now I know I'm a normal person. I've been through some bad stuff, but … those are things have happened to me, not who I am … This is me. The medicine helps, but this is in me."
Another said: "I have respect for my emotions now (rather than fear of them). What's most comforting is knowing now I can handle difficult feelings without being overwhelmed. I realise feeling the fear and anger is not nearly as big a deal as I thought it would be."
Ben Sessa said he hoped to recreate the study in the UK but "with an added twist – lots of neuroimaging". The only brain scans that have been done are of recreational ecstasy users, whose drugs may be contaminated and who have probably taken other substances, too.The death in 1995 of Leah Betts after taking ecstasy, from drinking too much water in response to a campaign warning ravers of the danger of dehydration, had prevented rational debate or scientific advance.
MDMA, he said, "is not about dancing around nightclubs – it's a really useful psychiatric drug".
Nutt said it made him angry that MDMA and LSD had been banned before any doctor could establish their potential benefit. LSD was being tried among terminal cancer patients.
"When I started in medicine in 1969 they were starting to see some interesting data in the use of LSD to help people make sense of dying. I don't think it is fair that because a drug is misused it should be banned from use in medicine," he said Heroin has been around for a hundred years so although it is illegal for street use, at least we have got that..
Leading the movement to get MDMA licensed for medical use is Rick Doblin, the founder in 1986 in the US of Maps, the non-profit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which backed Mithoefer's trial. "I think the chances of getting a licence are excellent. We have demonstrated an excellent level of safety. It's worked. It's necessary," he said. "It is probably going to take 10 years and $10m to do it."
Doblin, whose organisation relies on philanthropic donors, has no idea where that money will come from. Nutt and Sessa, whose proposed trial in the UK would boost the chances of MDMA entering the (locked) psychiatric drug cabinet are waiting for a response to their modest grant application from one of the UK's leading medical research funders. Sessa is optimistic; battle-scarred Nutt less so. Ecstasy will for ever be controversial. "If we get the study funded and into the public domain," said Nutt, "the Daily Mail will try to have it banned."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/ ... f-comments
Ecstasy trial planned to test benefits for trauma victims
Scientists hope to overcome tabloid anger after US trial suggests clubbers' drug can bring dramatic improvements for PTSD sufferers
Sarah Boseley
guardian.co.uk, Friday 30 September 2011
Doctors are planning the first clinical trial of ecstasy in the UK, to see whether the drug can be beneficial to the traumatised survivors of child abuse, rape and war.
Ecstasy and other illegal drugs such as LSD and magic mushrooms are potentially useful in treating people with serious psychological disturbance who cannot begin to face up to their distress, some psychiatrists and therapists believe. But because of public fear and tabloid anger about illegal drugs, scientists say they find it almost impossible to explore their potential.
Professor David Nutt, the psychopharmacologist who used to head the government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs until he fell out with the Labour home secretary and was sacked, said: "I feel quite strongly that many drugs with therapeutic potential have been denied to patients and researchers because of the drugs regulation. The drugs have been made illegal in a vain attempt to stop kids using them, but people haven't thought about the negative consequences."
Nutt and the Taunton-based psychiatrist Dr Ben Sessa are two of the British scientists who hope to repeat an experiment on patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) undertaken in the US which, although small, was successful and has caused some in the scientific community to think what was until recently unthinkable. It involved 20 people who had been in therapy and on pills for an average of 19 years. Twelve were given MDMA – or 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, the chemical compound found, often adulterated, in ecstasy tablets. The rest had placebo pills but were later also given the chance to take MDMA. Each one had a therapy session, lying back in a reclining chair in a pleasant flower-decorated room in South Carolina, wearing an eyemask.
Sometimes they listened to music on headphones and sometimes they talked to the therapist, all the while thinking about the events that had caused such profound distress that they had been unable to revisit it in past psychotherapy sessions.
The response rate was a remarkable 83% – 10 out of the 12 showed significant improvement two months after the second of two MDMA therapy sessions. That compared with 25% of those on the placebo. There were no serious side-effects and no long-term problems.
"I expected it was going to be effective," said Michael Mithoefer, the psychiatrist who ran the US study and carried out the psychotherapy with his wife, Ann. "I suppose we wouldn't have done it otherwise. But I didn't necessarily expect we'd find such statistical significance in that number [of people]. That was the icing on the cake."
The high number of troops returning with PTSD from Afghanistan and Iraq is attracting special attention to the study in the US. Only one of the 20 was a veteran, while the rest had suffered childhood sexual abuse, rape or other kinds of assault. Mithoefer's next study will be on veterans alone.
Nutt said PTSD is "an extraordinarily disabling condition and we don't have any really effective treatments. In order to deal with trauma, you have to be able to re-engage with the memory and then deal with it. For many people, as soon as the memory comes into consciousness, so does the fear and disgust".
Mithoefer said the participants did not appear to have joined the trial in hopes of some sort of high. "I don't think that was much of a factor at all. Some people were referred by their therapist and had never taken any drugs and were quite anxious about the whole thing and for them it was a last resort.
" Interestingly, several people said after their session: 'I don't know why they call this ecstasy' – because it was not an ecstatic experience. They were revisiting the trauma. It was very difficult and painful work, but the ecstasy gave them the feeling they could do it."
People spoke of getting past a barrier. One said: "I feel like I'm walking in a place I've needed to go for so long and just didn't know how to get there.
"I feel like I know myself better than I ever have before. Now I know I'm a normal person. I've been through some bad stuff, but … those are things have happened to me, not who I am … This is me. The medicine helps, but this is in me."
Another said: "I have respect for my emotions now (rather than fear of them). What's most comforting is knowing now I can handle difficult feelings without being overwhelmed. I realise feeling the fear and anger is not nearly as big a deal as I thought it would be."
Ben Sessa said he hoped to recreate the study in the UK but "with an added twist – lots of neuroimaging". The only brain scans that have been done are of recreational ecstasy users, whose drugs may be contaminated and who have probably taken other substances, too.The death in 1995 of Leah Betts after taking ecstasy, from drinking too much water in response to a campaign warning ravers of the danger of dehydration, had prevented rational debate or scientific advance.
MDMA, he said, "is not about dancing around nightclubs – it's a really useful psychiatric drug".
Nutt said it made him angry that MDMA and LSD had been banned before any doctor could establish their potential benefit. LSD was being tried among terminal cancer patients.
"When I started in medicine in 1969 they were starting to see some interesting data in the use of LSD to help people make sense of dying. I don't think it is fair that because a drug is misused it should be banned from use in medicine," he said Heroin has been around for a hundred years so although it is illegal for street use, at least we have got that..
Leading the movement to get MDMA licensed for medical use is Rick Doblin, the founder in 1986 in the US of Maps, the non-profit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which backed Mithoefer's trial. "I think the chances of getting a licence are excellent. We have demonstrated an excellent level of safety. It's worked. It's necessary," he said. "It is probably going to take 10 years and $10m to do it."
Doblin, whose organisation relies on philanthropic donors, has no idea where that money will come from. Nutt and Sessa, whose proposed trial in the UK would boost the chances of MDMA entering the (locked) psychiatric drug cabinet are waiting for a response to their modest grant application from one of the UK's leading medical research funders. Sessa is optimistic; battle-scarred Nutt less so. Ecstasy will for ever be controversial. "If we get the study funded and into the public domain," said Nutt, "the Daily Mail will try to have it banned."
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Comments
It made me a more positive person.
I used to take it almost every weekend for about 3 years and never had any negative side effects.
It's the best drug out there in my opinion.
And yes I'm one of those people that think that alcohol is often a more dangerous drug. But the US is just getting to understand the proper usage of marijuana so perhaps this will not be too far off.
Economically, it would be wonderful. On the social scale, it would be pretty great, too.
And save your whiny arguments, conservatives. Your precious Ronald Reagan and his cronies made a killing selling drugs back in the day.
I'm glad it helped you, Byrnzie, and I believe you 100%. The only problem I see here is giving any drug an across the board recommendation. For example, I know people whose lives have been saved by prozac but I also know someone very close to me that very nearly died because the drug kept him from sleeping, eating or getting out from under the covers for about one month.
Same with ecstacy. I know (not well, I admit) a woman who is almost totally and probably permantly spaced out and barely functional from taking too much ecstacy. Definitley not for everyone.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
i would think that ecstasy would be a good drug to combat depression if used in small doses...but apparently long term use can interfere with natural production of dopamine and seratonin, which could be fatal for someone with depression as it can lead to suicide attempts...
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
I hear ya, man. Several years ago a friend of mine gave me some and I thought nothing of trying to ski down a steep hill on my feet. No, not on snow... it was summer. The toe of my shoe caught a root and I went flying about fifteen feet, landed with my arm under my torso and busted a rib. Did I say, "Definitely not for everyone"!?!?
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
You Byrnzie? Postive???
i guess if it were legal a fucking pharmacist could have warned us about that ahead of time...
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
:thumbup:
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
... and ecstasy for EVERYONE, not just trauma victims.
Yes, Please.
I totally agree. I think the incidences of harm from drugs would be much lower if most were made legal- especially natural growing plant based drugs- and along with that legalization some good education. The injury I incurred on drugs resulted from lack education. I didn't know what I was getting into and what could have been a positive experience turned rather nasty. People die that way. I was lucky.
Also, I've had two people close to me die from a drug- alcohol. Both losses were devastating.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
I'm terribly sorry to hear about those who were close to you.
And as devastating as alcohol abuse is, we don't make it illegal. We don't take it away from those who use it responsibly. We don't create a black market for it, which creates all kinds of other problems. Well, we tried that, and it didn't work. It's not working for other drugs.
I don't think any drugs, including alcohol, should be sold in stores. I don't think any drugs should be advertised. I don't think there should be any profit from drugs. But if people make/grow their own, and share it with friends, that's their business. And there should be treatment for those who abuse drugs of course. There should be programs to educate people about drugs, in an honest way. The consequences for drug abuse are already heavy for the individuals who abuse it, and those who love them. Imprisoning people for it doesn't do anything more to stop it from happening... it makes a bad situation worse.
and there wouldn't be any fights or violence. None. It is physically not possible while on MDMA... "dude why would I be mad at you, you are SOOOO cool. No seriously, dude, I love you. You are an amazing person with such a positive vibration. Let's hug it out!"
Was thinking same -- would hate to see the grumpy Byrnzie is this is the smiley one!
Hugs Byrnz
I have some growing in my front yard but not very well. :( I'm far from a pro but to me it's a beautiful plant of nature even if it doesn't make to full growth.
If people think that nature is their friend, then they sure don’t need an enemy.”
~Kurt Vonnegut
Peace
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
Love that quote, g!
Yeah, it'd be a great Saturday night, but then everyone would go into work on Monday with major depression.
I've only used it once so obviously I'm not an expert, but it did leave me feeling pretty low for a few days afterward (coffee and weed helped), and I know that people can overdose, or use it too often, and do serious harm to themselves. So let's just be honest about that. It's a waste of time to arrest people for selling it on the street, but I don't think it should be sold in any establishment.
Mushrooms, that's my thing :thumbup: