|
 Madtowntripper
Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers
Registered: 03/06/03
Posts: 21,287
Loc: The Ocean of Notions
Last seen: 8 months, 8 days
|
 Ecstasy Approved for US Study 
#2378758 - 02/26/04 09:24 AM (20 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/02/25/ecstasy.study/index.html
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A South Carolina psychiatrist said Wednesday he will immediately start recruiting patients after winning approval to conduct the first study testing MDMA -- better known as ecstasy -- as a therapeutic tool.
Dr. Michael Mithoefer plans to conduct psychotherapy sessions with 20 women who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder due to sexual assaults or other violence, and who haven't been helped by other treatment. Twelve of the women will receive MDMA prior to the sessions while eight will be given a placebo.
The Food and Drug Administration approved Mithoefer's protocol in 2001, but it took another two years to find an institutional review board willing to sanction the study, which is a required step when dealing with human research subjects.
Mithoefer's research required approval from the Drug Enforcement Administration because MDMA is a Schedule I drug. It's grouped with drugs like heroin, cocaine and LSD, all considered to have no medical use.
Bill Grant, a spokesman for the DEA, said the final approval came Tuesday night.
Mithoefer says he works with post-traumatic stress disorder patients all the time and he's excited about the possibility of finding a better treatment for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who suffer from the sometimes debilitating disorder.
"We owe it to them," he said. "It would be irresponsible for the medical community not to investigate something like this."
At the same time, he warns that using MDMA in an uncontrolled setting can be very dangerous.
"It's really important for people to realize the fact that we have permission to do this study and we can do it safely in this setting," he said.
Also, the fact that he's received permission for the study, he said, "does not mean that you can use ecstasy safely and anywhere."
MDMA was first invented in 1912 but largely ignored until young people made it a recreational drug starting in the late 1970s. Psychiatrists quickly became aware of its unusual properties, and several dozen experimented by giving MDMA to patients -- including people suffering post-traumatic stress disorder -- and others with intense anxiety after receiving diagnoses of terminal cancer.
One of those patients from the early 1980s is an artist now living in the western United States, who spoke with CNN. She did not want her name used.
After being raped and beaten at age 17, the woman suffered severe panic attacks for eight years, leading to three hospitalizations before being treated with MDMA. Before those sessions, she said her trauma was misdiagnosed as schizophrenia, severe depression and bipolar disorder.
"MDMA allowed me, for the first time, to sit with the details of the event, and separate them from what was happening in the present," she told CNN. "I was able to relax my body. I was able to say, 'this is not happening to you right now.' "
Suicidal at the time, she said the treatment may have saved her life.
"There might have been another way, but the way that I see it is that I probably would have died," she said.
"When someone is traumatized, walls form around trauma -- like a scar -- and it's hard to get someone to open up and talk about it," explains Dr. Julie Holland of New York University, author of "Ecstasy: A Complete Guide."
"What's unique about MDMA is that it's actually stimulating but decreases anxiety," Holland told CNN. "It could help people feel calm and comfortable enough to explore painful things that are hard to talk about."
"A good analogy is that it would give psychiatry something akin to anesthesia during therapy," she said. "And unlike anesthesia, your memory is completely intact, but even enhanced. You remember the trauma very clearly, but are comfortable enough to talk about it."
"Because it anesthetizes the patient to some extent," Holland said, "you can get to that malignant core in one or two sessions instead of three or four years."
But Dr. Scott Lillienfeld, a psychiatrist at Emory University who has studied post-traumatic stress disorder, said that hypothesis is "at the least, muddled."
Lillienfeld said effective treatment actually requires the patient to face their trauma head-on. "If you're calm, you're not getting at the root of the problem," said Lillienfeld.
He also said Mithoefer's study has methodological problems.
"There's no real placebo," he said. "Everyone will know who's on the drugs. What I wonder is, instead of a placebo, why aren't they giving a drug that mimics the physical effects?"
Mithoefer said all participants will have to undergo psychiatric screening and a physical exam to ensure they don't have any physical risk factors. Ecstasy, a strong stimulant, is thought to be particularly dangerous to people with high blood pressure. It also has been known to cause dangerous overheating in people who take it and then exercise or dance for a long period of time.
Patients in this clinical trial will be given the drug only one or two times. They will be under a doctor's supervision for the entire time they are under the drug's influence.
Mithoefer said he hopes to begin the actual therapy sessions next month.
--------------------
After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action. If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it. - Ernest Hemingway
If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent. -Cormac MacCarthy
He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. - Aeschylus
|
AuroricDistortions
~~~~~~~
Registered: 10/06/03
Posts: 711
Loc: Polar Springs
Last seen: 6 years, 23 days
|
|
It's about time. I think there will be promising results from this, and subsequent studies.
--------------------
|
Randolph_Carter
НơĻ?ĢΉōsŧ
Registered: 06/13/00
Posts: 29,281
Loc: Shroomery B-list.
Last seen: 13 years, 10 months
|
|
20 years later, and they pick up where they left off.
Too bad they just didn't skip to this part. But it is nice to see someone thinking about it.
--------------------
"..all those molecules thrashing their kinky little tails, hot for destiny and the street." Gibson
Nuke baby seals for Jesus!
(This has been a +1 production.)
|
daba
Stranger
Registered: 12/30/02
Posts: 3,881
Last seen: 11 years, 3 months
|
|
Although I do not believe this study will bring about any legalization of the drug for recreational purposes, it is a significant step towards ridding the heinous name that recreational drugs carry with them.
|
llamaboy
the weasel thatsnagged the bee
Registered: 11/08/03
Posts: 563
Loc: Portland PNW
Last seen: 14 years, 5 months
|
|
>>Mithoefer's research required approval from the Drug Enforcement Administration because MDMA is a Schedule I drug. It's grouped with drugs like heroin, cocaine and LSD, all considered to have no medical use<<<
uhh cocaine is schedule II...
i know that's off topic, but i just thought i'd share. it's still used as a local anesthetic for eye surgery. and is usually stocked in most hospital pharmacies.
|
DailyPot
Trip'n Time
Registered: 11/17/02
Posts: 2,207
Loc: Florida
Last seen: 18 years, 2 months
|
Re: Ecstasy Approved for US Study [Re: daba]
#2386306 - 02/28/04 09:58 AM (20 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
Quote:
daba said:
Although I do not believe this study will bring about any legalization of the drug for recreational purposes, it is a significant step towards ridding the heinous name that recreational drugs carry with them.
The way I see it for a drug to become legal it is 1st going to have to become schedule 2 atleast. Schedule 1 drugs are a bitch regarding laws so its very hard to show it should be legal scientificly. Once people are using it medically safely then you can make the arguement why wouldn't it be safe recreationally. This is probably why most anti-drug people are aganst the medical use of drugs.
|
debianlinux
Myconerd - DBK
Registered: 12/09/02
Posts: 8,334
Loc: Over There
Last seen: 9 months, 17 days
|
Re: Ecstasy Approved for US Study [Re: llamaboy]
#2391052 - 03/01/04 11:58 AM (20 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
Quote:
llamaboy said:
>>Mithoefer's research required approval from the Drug Enforcement Administration because MDMA is a Schedule I drug. It's grouped with drugs like heroin, cocaine and LSD, all considered to have no medical use<<<
uhh cocaine is schedule II...
i know that's off topic, but i just thought i'd share. it's still used as a local anesthetic for eye surgery. and is usually stocked in most hospital pharmacies.
that's the only discrepancy you found in that post?!
c'mon people! wher are your brains? where the hell was the author of this article's brain?
heroin has no medical use? hahahhahahahaaaaa heeee heee hoh hoh hohoh
ah
um
hahahahahahahahahahahaha.
cocaine is also used in dentistry. alot.
|
 Jenny
part of thewhole
Registered: 06/02/00
Posts: 5,614
Loc: Columbus, OHIO
|
|
What do you mean its about time? Cali approves E all the time for therapeutic usage, you just don't hear about it.
--------------------
Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present experience.
It isn't more complicated than that.
It is opening to or recieving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant, just as it is,
without either clinging to it or rejecting it.
|
AuroricDistortions
~~~~~~~
Registered: 10/06/03
Posts: 711
Loc: Polar Springs
Last seen: 6 years, 23 days
|
Re: Ecstasy Approved for US Study [Re: Jenny]
#2404653 - 03/04/04 09:42 PM (20 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Madtowntripper said:
...to conduct the first study testing MDMA -- better known as ecstasy -- as a therapeutic tool.
I didn't know about the studies in Cali.
--------------------
|
CLIT
Stranger
Registered: 01/23/12
Posts: 2,758
Last seen: 1 year, 2 months
|
 Re: Ecstasy Approved for US Study [Re: DailyPot]
#23912104 - 12/10/16 03:45 AM (7 years, 4 months ago) |
|
|
But Canada just legalized prescription heroin.
Quote:
DailyPot said:
Quote:
daba said:
Although I do not believe this study will bring about any legalization of the drug for recreational purposes, it is a significant step towards ridding the heinous name that recreational drugs carry with them.
The way I see it for a drug to become legal it is 1st going to have to become schedule 2 atleast. Schedule 1 drugs are a bitch regarding laws so its very hard to show it should be legal scientificly. Once people are using it medically safely then you can make the arguement why wouldn't it be safe recreationally. This is probably why most anti-drug people are aganst the medical use of drugs.
|
Lucis
Nutritional Yeast
Registered: 03/28/15
Posts: 15,622
Last seen: 4 months, 14 days
|
|
It would be nice to see such things used for people that have PTSD, or other similar issues.
--------------------
©️
|
CLIT
Stranger
Registered: 01/23/12
Posts: 2,758
Last seen: 1 year, 2 months
|
|
There should be ecstasy infusion clinics like they do with Ketamine, who's with me?
|
|
Threaded
Previous
Index
Next
USA West Coast Strains 
Kratom Capsules for Sale 
Buy Bali Kratom Powder 
Golden Teacher Liquid Culture For Sale
Edit 
Reply 
wireless
veggie
motaman