Why Prescription Ecstasy or LSD Could Happen Much Sooner Than You Think
by Anneli Rufus, alternet.org
June 24th 2011
Let's say an abuse-ridden childhood has left you with PTSD that sparks panic
whenever you hear shouts, even on TV. Or let's say a bad accident has
saddled you with crippling anxiety and chronic pain. Now let's say that you
could ease -- or even cure -- these woes with prescription psiloscybin.
Prescription ecstasy. Prescription LSD.
If a growing phalanx of scientists get their way, those prescriptions could
be yours within 10 years. Research into the medical benefits of psychedelic
drugs is booming. An April conference on the subject at Great Britain's
University of Kent featured lectures on such topics as "Ketamine
Psychotherapy" and "Ayahuasca in the Contemporary World."
Leading this wave is the Boston-based Multidisciplinary Association for
Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), whose executive director Rick Doblin spoke at
that conference. MAPS researchers have spent 15 years conducting
international clinical trials whose results indicate that LSD and psilocybin
counteract depression and anxiety and are effective pain-management tools
while MDMA (ecstasy) conquers fear. Just this month, the Israeli Ministry of
Health approved a new MAPS study using MDMA to treat PTSD.
"Time is on our side," Doblin says. "The world is full of aging baby boomers
who are looking forward to psychedelic retirement and psychedelic hospice.
"They had psychedelic experiences in their youth that were useful to them.
They gave up the drugs for family and career. Now they're thinking back to
those valuable experiences and they want to get re-engaged."
But this isn't about ex-hippies seeking free highs. Rather, it's about
mainstreaming these drugs, which MAPS does "by focusing on medical uses,
which in our culture is the most likely way to create new legal contexts,
because there is a love affair with medicine in this culture. There's a
constant interest in whatever's the latest from the scientific lab."
It's not about money. Costing nearly nothing to manufacture, "these aren't
the kind of drugs that you need to take every day for the rest of your
life." Instead, it's about using cutting-edge technology to prove what
millions around the world have been saying for thousands of years: This
stuff gets to your head.
As a teenager in the early 1970s, Doblin first learned that psychedelics
were being used to enhance art, spirituality and psychology.
"Then it all got shut down."
Those damn hippie freaks.
"People using psychedelics had accidents and did stupid things and ended up
dying or going nuts. A bunch of famous people had extremely idealistic views
that weren't particularly practical and weren't particularly patient.
Timothy Leary and his ilk were making exaggerated claims, saying that if you
do psychedelics you're more enlightened than others; if you do psychedelics
you're better than others. One of that era's biggest mistakes was Leary
saying turn on, tune in, drop out."
Richard Nixon called Timothy Leary the most dangerous man in America. Hello,
backlash. Hello, War on Drugs.
"The government came out with its own exaggerated claims, saying that if you
took these drugs you'd have deformed babies and brain-cell death. We now
know that it isn't true, but back then it launched this huge cultural clash.
You might say society had a really bad trip."
Research to the rescue. High-tech brain scans reveal that psilocybin
inhibits blood flow in parts of the brain that regulate sensory input. Less
blood flow means less regulation. Flooded with perceptions, a psilocybinized
brain can help PTSD patients reprogram their fears, Doblin says. New tools
also provide new insight into LSD's ego-dissolving "catharsis effect." And
the ecstasy chemistry: MDMA reduces blood flow in the fear-processing
amygdala while increasing blood flow in the prefrontal cortex, which
facilitates our ability to put things into context.
"With MDMA, the fear circuitry is reduced," Doblin explains. This helps PTSD
patients remember and re-examine long-buried aspects of their traumas. Aided
by MDMA, "these memories don't immediately go straight to fear." Say you
were traumatized by a bat-wielding, red-hatted assailant. Under MDMA, "the
neural pathways connecting bats, red hats and fear are not so strong."
Recontextualized in an MDMA-activated prefrontal cortex, triggers lose their
power -- sometimes forever, he says.
"Under the influence of MDMA, people can make emotional changes that persist
after the MDMA is out of their systems." On MDMA, "you operate on this much
smoother level, and then you lose it -- but not all of it. You get so much
material from that experience, which you can learn to integrate."
This doesn't mean you can recover by hitting a few raves. A key theme of the
medical-psychedelics movement is that it's medical. These drugs are so
strong and long-lasting that, for clinical use, Doblin says they must be
administered in "a safe, supportive, controlled setting" overseen by
professionals.
In one MAPS study, 10-hour LSD sessions took place in a medical office.
Guided by a psychiatrist and a nurse, patients being treated for severe
anxiety lay with their eyes shut, listening to music they had chosen for
this purpose. According to a MAPS prospectus, each patient was encouraged to
focus "introspectively on his or her sense of self and life-history in order
to increase the psychological insights mediated by the LSD treatment." The
nurse and psychiatrist would sometimes "use physical touch, such as holding
hands." These drug sessions were followed by non-drug sessions in which
patients discussed their drug experiences.
In a successful psychedelic therapy session, Doblin says, "there are times
when the patient gets extremely lighthearted. You could have laughter. You
could have joy. It's like a roller-coaster ride. You could have beautiful
memories that give you the strength to go down to difficult memories, then
come back to the surface and go back down there again, to a different level,
hours later."
In old-school therapy, "it's the analyst who figures out your problems and
tells you what your insights should be. But if these insights are
disconnected from your emotions, it won't work." With psychedelics, by
contrast, "the emotional connection is immediate and personal." Analysts can
help you sort it out, "but it's an experience of yourself. The drug has
simply given you a window onto yourself."
"There is a need for these substances," says Doblin, who along with his
colleagues sees psychedelics as a powerful alternative or at least adjunct
to SSRIs and, in the case of pain management, opiates. What's the difference
between Zoloft and ecstasy? Legality. In other words: the FDA. MAPS submits
its findings to the agency, which Doblin hopes "will put science before
politics.
"The main problem with the drug war is the concept that there are good drugs
and bad drugs," when what's actually good or bad "is the relationship
between the person and the drug, and the context in which the drug is
taken."
For instance, naysayers can claim "that MDMA is a drug of abuse and since
people with PTSD have a high incidence of drug abuse, they shouldn't be
given MDMA. But people with PTSD have a high incidence of drug abuse because
they haven't been able to deal with painful emotions that they abuse drugs
to escape." If those emotions could be processed via MDMA therapy, "their
drive to abuse drugs would be reduced.
"We want to clarify that drugs of abuse can be used well. But the government
is still too wedded to the drug war."
In that regard, the Bush-to-Obama handover "didn't really change things at
all. We hoped it would."
Nonetheless, Doblin and his colleagues predict the legalization of
prescription psychedelics within the decade. Until then,"we have to show
society and scientists that these drugs can be used in ways that create
greater benefits than harms."
In the new wave of psychedelic research, "there hasn't been a single person
who has died or was driven crazy."
So far, so good.
Original Page:
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/151394/why_prescription_ecstasy_or_lsd_could_ha
ppen_much_sooner_than_you_think/?page=entire
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