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Idiot
I Am Moron!



Registered: 11/27/05
Posts: 6,554
Loc: 41.90231, 12.45390
Last seen: 7 days, 23 hours
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Prescription Ecstasy
#7703018 - 12/01/07 02:37 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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http://jezebel.com/gossip/everything-bad-is-good-for-you/prescription-ecstasy-psychiatrists-are-raving-about-the-drugs-mental-health-benefits-326422.php
Prescription Ecstasy? The Government Is Testing It, And Psychiatrists Are Raving About The Benefits...
The government's giving out Ecstasy! Well, you know, as part of a clinical trial to explore the possible health benefits of being surrounded by love and warmth and people wearing parachute pants. The results look promising, reports the Washington Post Magazine in a really wonderful, affirming cover story that suggests the drug could be available with a prescription within five years for sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder. How exactly do you fake that? A sufferer named Donna Kilgore, who came down with a severe case after getting raped, explains that for years "I would put my finger on my arm, and it would be like touching a dead a body" (i. e. kind of like what it's like coming down from Ecstasy.) Antidepressant after antidepressant failed Donna... and then she became the first patient in the Ecstasy trial. "Now I feel all warm and fuzzy," she said on her first try. Just two doses was all it took to fill her with the "all-consuming love" she thought she'd "lost forever." Aw! Results were similar on other PTSD patients, which is good, because there's a war on, and that can be traumatic.
And soldiers who come back traumatized tend to spend years talking out their issues with taxpayer-funded shrinks and never actually getting anywhere with that.
Conveniently, although it isn't mentioned in the story, Israel is a huge hub of the ecstasy trade, and it is also relatively close to a lot of traumatic events, so in the meantime troops who are reading this, we wouldn't want to advocate self-medicating, except that, ha ha ha, we sort of do.
In all seriousness, though, the piece is really interesting because Ecstasy was really the first new drug to come along in the Just Say No era --it was embraced by this crazy psychedelic-loving shrink who introduced it to a friend of his, who helped it find its way to the Dallas club scene, and within a few months the DEA came in and ruined the whole party and it was illegal. So they never really got a chance to test its possible benefits, and every time they tried they were presented with some research about how Ecstasy, like, drills holes in monkey brains, except...
In the case of the primate test subjects, the Science article said, the drug was so toxic that two of 10 animals died, and two more were in such bad shape that the researchers didn't give them a planned third injection.
After 2 1/2 years of work, the PTSD study appeared to be doomed.
A year later, Science printed a retraction: The vials containing the drugs that so damaged the monkeys' brains had been mislabeled. It wasn't MDMA after all, but methamphetamine. A new review board quickly signed on to support Mithoefer's study, but the irony of the wasted year wasn't lost on him: The misidentified drug that had been deemed too toxic to evaluate for medical use, the drug that was far more toxic than MDMA, was already a prescription drug.
At which point you're like, whoa, meth is a prescription drug??
It sure is! And if the Adderall ain't working like it used to, you might want to look into getting a prescription...
But back to Ecstasy: it sounds like a really positive development that the psychiatric community is looking into its possible benefits, and they're thinking of giving it to terminal cancer patients too, and you kind of have to think it would be good for post-partum depression and anger management as well, and maybe the terrorists could use a few pills, and if the whole world has to wander around holding hands and gnawing on pacifiers maybe that's a small price to pay.
The Peace Drug [Washington Post Magazine]
-------------------- Customize your Shroomery experience! Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
Edited by Idiot (12/01/07 02:38 PM)
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veggie

Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,504
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Re: Prescription Ecstasy [Re: Idiot]
#7703079 - 12/01/07 03:00 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Mr_DeeMsTer
Mystic


Registered: 01/20/07
Posts: 211
Last seen: 14 years, 2 months
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Re: Prescription Ecstasy [Re: veggie]
#7703096 - 12/01/07 03:04 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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thank god for a positive drug story for once.
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Robo
R Series 66Y
Registered: 05/08/07
Posts: 14,861
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Re: Prescription Ecstasy [Re: Idiot]
#7703174 - 12/01/07 03:28 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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MDMA has much promise in medicinal psychology
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Available
Stranger

Registered: 04/10/07
Posts: 46
Last seen: 14 years, 11 months
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Re: Prescription Ecstasy [Re: Robo]
#7703481 - 12/01/07 04:53 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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"A year later, Science printed a retraction: The vials containing the drugs that so damaged the monkeys' brains had been mislabeled. It wasn't MDMA after all, but methamphetamine"
Minor mistake....? or and intentional one?
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badchad
Mad Scientist

Registered: 03/02/05
Posts: 13,372
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Re: Prescription Ecstasy [Re: Available]
#7703505 - 12/01/07 04:58 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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It's almost certain the mix up was a mistake, and NOT intentional. The publication was in Science, one of the most widely circulated, and the most prestigious scientific journal.
Any author knows full well that if they publish in Science, it will be read by millions and eventually repeated.
-------------------- ...the whole experience is (and is as) a profound piece of knowledge. It is an indellible experience; it is forever known. I have known myself in a way I doubt I would have ever occurred except as it did. Smith, P. Bull. Menninger Clinic (1959) 23:20-27; p. 27. ...most subjects find the experience valuable, some find it frightening, and many say that is it uniquely lovely. Osmond, H. Annals, NY Acad Science (1957) 66:418-434; p.436
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Robo
R Series 66Y
Registered: 05/08/07
Posts: 14,861
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Re: Prescription Ecstasy [Re: Available]
#7703524 - 12/01/07 05:02 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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That was the government funded Ricaurte study. Raises a bit of suspicion, eh?
The Ricaurte study is excellent reason for allowing MDMA to be used for medicinal/psychotherapeutic reasons, which is funny because the point of the study was to prove the neurotoxicology of MDMA and disprove it's safety. Even if there was a label error (which the company that supplied the study denies there ever was any), that just justifies MDMA being used medicinally even more.
Methamphetamine is already available from the pharmaceutical industry in the form of Desoxyn! So why is a toxic chemical already available to young children for the treatment of ADD, while non-toxic MDMA is not available for for victims of psychological conditions such as PTSD?
Makes you think
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Robo
R Series 66Y
Registered: 05/08/07
Posts: 14,861
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Re: Prescription Ecstasy [Re: badchad]
#7703557 - 12/01/07 05:08 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
badchad said: It's almost certain the mix up was a mistake, and NOT intentional. The publication was in Science, one of the most widely circulated, and the most prestigious scientific journal.
I think the study was bullshit from the beginning, it was government funded. What do you expect, seriously? It was almost garaunteed to find something wrong with MDMA whether or not there was anything wrong, that was the point. Whether or not there was a labeling error doesn't even matter, even had there been actual MDMA used in the study they would have found the same results IMO.
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johnm214



Registered: 05/31/07
Posts: 17,582
Loc: Americas
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Re: Prescription Ecstasy [Re: Robo]
#7703754 - 12/01/07 06:03 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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the manufacturer fucked up the packaging on the bottles from what I remember, and cross labeled the bottles. The mdma and ma were transposed, or both were ma or something. They were ordered and recieved in the same shipment and hilarity ensued.
I still think MDMA is probably neurotoxic. I just wonder about the prozac / ssri link... where they show it prevents problems in rats. Do you still get high w/ prozac and mdma, or with other ssri's? Anyone know?
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Robo
R Series 66Y
Registered: 05/08/07
Posts: 14,861
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Re: Prescription Ecstasy [Re: johnm214]
#7703825 - 12/01/07 06:20 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
johnm214 said: I still think MDMA is probably neurotoxic.
Well sure it is when it's overused. But the purpose of the study was to prove that the average amount thought to be consumed by your typical "raver" in a night of dancing did substantial irreversible brain damage, which was not true.
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johnm214



Registered: 05/31/07
Posts: 17,582
Loc: Americas
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Re: Prescription Ecstasy [Re: Robo]
#7703982 - 12/01/07 07:04 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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yeah, those studies never really reach the crux of the issue, is sparing use problematic? who knows
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Robo
R Series 66Y
Registered: 05/08/07
Posts: 14,861
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Re: Prescription Ecstasy [Re: Robo]
#7708306 - 12/02/07 08:24 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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When they make MDMA legal for medicinal purposes, I'll be the first in line. I can promise you this much
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2FiNiTe
ConsideratlyKilling Me



Registered: 06/12/06
Posts: 1,635
Loc: New England
Last seen: 7 years, 4 months
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Re: Prescription Ecstasy [Re: Robo]
#7708488 - 12/02/07 09:12 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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This has been going on for some time, I first read an article about it in high times, that was a 2004 article and they had already been doing it for 3 years.
-------------------- "Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war that we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living." General Omar N. Bradley
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