Funny because it started as a breakthrough therapy drug which Shulgin and a few psychiatrists and escaped to become a club drug, especially in Texas. This lead to it being placed in schedule 1 by the DEA, against recommendations by doctors and scientists, that it should be allowed to be researched. The DEA did this by passing a special law giving them emergency powers.<p><a href="http://www.maps.org/research-archive/dea-mdma/" rel="nofollow">http://www.maps.org/research-archive/dea-mdma/</a><p>Having had experience with MDMA I can attest to it’s near magical therapeutic powers. But no drug is a panacea and it can certainly have drastic side effects, particularly when abused but even if not.
If you are unable to observe a thing directly, and instead could only see it through a distortion lens, would you want the opportunity to look at it through multiple different distortion lenses instead of just one?<p>The world we know is largely constructed by semi-conscious and sub-conscious processes, from world building processes (such as how the mind filters and modifies information to construct our reality), to conclusions we make about the world, ourselves, and what is possible (emotionally motivated reasoning, decision heuristics, predictive modeling).<p>Google deep dream provides interesting insight into psychedelic phenomena, and hints at what is changing in the mind’s world-building process when on those substances.<p>When it comes to MDMA, because it so dramatically changes emotion, it can also dramatically shift reasoning and thinking heuristics that unconsciously originate from emotion. This can transform beliefs that you once took for self-evident fact, into things that you now realize represent how you feel more than reality.<p>Some further reading that I found very valuable:
World Building Process: <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/anil_seth_how_your_brain_hallucinates_your_conscious_reality" rel="nofollow">https://www.ted.com/talks/anil_seth_how_your_brain_hallucina...</a>
Deep Dream:
<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/07/google_deepdream_it_s_dazzling_creepy_and_tells_us_a_lot_about_the_future.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/07/goo...</a>
It is absolutely shocking to me that research into MDMA and classic psychedelics isn't swamped with funding. I'd imagine that some wealthy people must find this stuff extremely intriguing - Yuri Milner is spending $100 million on space exploration, and an MDMA phase 3 research trial needs ~$15 million and finds it really hard to raise money?<p>Both have extremely high therapeutic potential, classic psychedelics in particular are interesting in the same way that space exploration is interesting.<p>And as diogenescynic noted elsewhere, it's even more shocking that we as a society put up with it.
Please Donate to MAPS (the organization coordinating this research) if you can -- they need funding now more than ever: <a href="https://store.maps.org/np/clients/maps/donation.jsp?campaign=11" rel="nofollow">https://store.maps.org/np/clients/maps/donation.jsp?campaign...</a>
It's good that people with serious issues can get some help via drugs like MDMA, but I do think people should be careful.<p>I feel that certain groups of people are a bit flippant about drug use, and seem eager to promote them as these great things.<p>As an example of why we should still remain vigilant - studies have shown MDMA users to literally have shrunken bits of their brain.
<a href="http://www.maps.org/news/media/2462-media-reports-of-ecstasy-and-brain-shrinkage-overblown" rel="nofollow">http://www.maps.org/news/media/2462-media-reports-of-ecstasy...</a><p>I remain cautious of people that promote these things - we should know about the side effects so we can make informed decisions.<p>Overall, I think it's good to open up laws to allow usage of this, but let's not forget the people who suffer from or may be prone to suffer from drug abuse, and maybe think twice before promoting these things to friends.
I think a lot of the psychotropic drugs can help us unlock new treatments. IMO, if we can remove the morality issues from some of this research, we'll see greater progress. I'm also hopeful that cannabis will make its way into more research.
If anyone is wondering how they can help make sure this research happens, the single most helpful thing I'm aware of is helping MAPS find people interested in large (6 or 7 figures) donations. You could reach out to askmaps@maps.org or via another channel if that describes you or a friend
I'm very interested in this stuff. See my submissions for other interesting articles on the potential of MDMA and classic psychedelics (magic mushrooms, LSD) to help both unwell and healthy people be happier & healthier: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=anythingnonidin" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=anythingnonidin</a><p>This site has an overview of where MDMA and classic psychedelics may be useful, and the most effective things you can do to help the science + safe access progress: <a href="http://www.rethinkpsychedelics.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.rethinkpsychedelics.org/</a>
The "MDMA Therapy" subreddit has some decent info: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/mdmatherapy/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/mdmatherapy/</a>
We're slowly realizing that there's not actually a difference between dangerous drugs and miraculous medicines. The dose (and the circumstances) make the poison, always.
MDMA as a tool for treatment has always been obvious to me. Any drug which can give you such a massive high, taking you so completely out of that low is a method bringing a person more in-tune to a place they should be.<p>But of course and critically at the same time the user should have the right thought processes in place for it to be effective and not something they cling too in a recreational cycle, in my mind it should only need to be one-time event.
I recommend reading or listening to the book Acid Test if anyone here would like to learn more about the therapeutic potential of MDMA and classic psychedelics (e.g. psilocybin/magic mushrooms).
Paywall, but I'm going to go ahead and assume the real answer is that some drug company will get monopoly rights to sell it, and has outlined an effective strategy to get it overprescribed at the expense of US taxpayers. That's how it became a 'breakthrough therapy'<p>edit: I'm not saying it's bad to treat MDMA as a useful therapy. I'm just saying what force was at play to change the cultural opinion.