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California study begins screening for MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD

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Re: California study begins screening for MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD

#101
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you live? Even when I lived in East London I never felt a threat of real violence including travelling worldwide. I felt more likely to be beaten up as a teenager wearing heavy metal or grunge look from other packs of roaming teens (small town UK). Wishing you more peace in the future!

In the heart of Portland, Oregon. It was safe as fuck before the pandemic. I grew up in Los Angeles and lived in East LA awhile; lived in Bedford-Stuyvesant two years; lived in the Tenderloin for a year (not the way it is now). I've also lived in Prague, Barcelona, Saigon, Bangkok, Sydney (King's Cross, before the fall of it). The total chaos and anarchy of Portland right now is hard to explain. Almost everyone I kno…

As another data point to anyone else reading this, I live in Portland smack dab in the most densely populated part of south-east, and go to downtown several times a week. Homelessness is a problem, but I've never experienced the post-apocalyptic wasteland this person is describing. My friends, many of whom were born and raised here, have never described being mugged or being witness to random acts of violence like this. I have been here for 5 years and even when there were the nightly BLM protests in downtown I never saw or experienced anything close to what this person describes.

Re: California study begins screening for MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You literally described what addiction is in reference to MDMA. And this is going to be the problem with the drug for treating mood disorders. Just like Prozac, it will stop working And you will need a larger dose for the same action. Just because you don’t actively go out and seek for a drug does not mean you are not addicted (conditioned)to it.

Addiction and tolerance are related, but distinct.

The outcome is the same no matter the difference.

But can I tell you my own brother said he "could not live without Prozac." What does that sound like to you?

Re: California study begins screening for MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD

#103

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> This is not something only I have seen but also something one of the best psychiatrist ever had has seen. This tone is off. This is the tone used politically for the last few years - the tone of: 'Trust me', 'The best people in the world think...' No citations, deliberately saying you won't share links. Or facts. Shame-inducing phrasing like "if you know anything..." Offering points for people who can agree with yo…

Sorry, I mistyped. That should have read "one of the best psychiatrist ever 'I had ever' seen."

No post body was provided.

Re: California study begins screening for MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD

#104

I have always thought it is hysterical that there are street drugs (MDMA, Ketamine) that have an immediate impact on emotions, yet the global medical establishment only supports drugs that take 2-4 weeks to 'kick in' with a very slight change that a substantial amount of patients do not even get. What is going on when we measure competency that way.

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The point of MDMA therapy is not to pop it on a regular basis to have higher serotonin levels. There's a reason that MDMA is being used for PTSD and not Depression (although I think it would be useful for non-chemical based cases of depression, e.g. psychological based depression). The point of MDMA is to allow that individual to open up enough and bring down their walls enough such that healing through therapy can actually take place. At least, that is my understanding as a non-expert.

Re: California study begins screening for MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD

#105
post #71
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds horrendous. I had a friend from Portland that I met kayaking and he made it sound like heaven on earth. I have friends from UK who moved to work at Google (in Washington I guess?) Is there a great re-location of tech staff happening in the US right now? I heard that a lot of people are leaving California including a few friends of mine. Even Joe Rogan moved to Austin and he can handle himself!

Joe Rogan moved to Austin and he can handle himself! Whatever reasons Joe Rogan had for moving had nothing to do with him fearing for his personal safety. He was almost certainly scared of taxes, not muggers (add joke about the IRS being the worst muggers, here)

Rogan is a true dipshit; it makes me feel bad that I'm adding to the negativity around Portland. I resisted doing that through the entire pandemic while everyone I knew was like "how are you still in that hell hole"... I have hope because Portland is one of the only places in America where you can still sit at a cafe and truly talk crazy political shit with people from the far left and far right at the same table, because it's also the city with the highest number of books and magazines bought per capita. You just can't do that in Dallas. So there's something to it. But it's like living in fucking Berlin, 1929. Who knows whether it'll cough out a Hitler or a Stalin.

Re: California study begins screening for MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD

#106
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You literally described what addiction is in reference to MDMA. And this is going to be the problem with the drug for treating mood disorders. Just like Prozac, it will stop working And you will need a larger dose for the same action. Just because you don’t actively go out and seek for a drug does not mean you are not addicted (conditioned)to it.

The thing about MDMA is that it causes your brain to dump your serotonin reserves into your brain all at once. Doing that too often, without letting your serotonin rebuild, can cause serotonin syndrome. I think psychedelics are safer in that regard. Nobody in the history of humanity has ever physically done "too much acid". Even some people who ingested tens of thousands of micrograms (thinking they were snorting cok…

> Doing that too often, without letting your serotonin rebuild, can cause serotonin syndrome.

Serotonin syndrome is when you have too much serotonin, not too little.

Re: California study begins screening for MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, passive aggressive: "Passive-aggressive people regularly exhibit resistance to requests or demands from family and other individuals often by procrastinating, expressing sullenness, or acting stubborn." "What do we want!?" "Ending homelessness!" "When do we want it?" "It's impossible!"

Oh, ending homelessness is a stupid priority. Giving people the education to take care of themselves if they choose to is important, but what they do with it is only my problem if they make it my problem. I can't spend my life taking care of people who refuse to take care of themselves.

> I can't spend my life taking care of people who refuse to take care of themselves.

This is how a society collapses, when people think they know who "refuses" to take care of themselves and who simply cannot.

Re: California study begins screening for MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD

#108
Honestly the therapy we need right now is a 3 day ibogaine cure for opioid addiction. All wrapped in a pleasant, life-affirming trip, in lieu of a sickened withdrawal. If pharmacologists could engineer it into a single dose, it would mean the restoration of livelihoods and hollowed out cities across the globe ;)

Re: California study begins screening for MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD

#109

If you're interested in MDMA sessions, and specifically MAPS (the pharma company that runs the trials), you might want to listen to the Cover story podcast, which deals with the MDMA/psylocybin culture of California as well as these trials. The first episode is at [1], the first episode dealing with maps is at [2]. These rape allegations are highly disconcerting and disheartening. [1] https://www.thecut.com/2021/11/c…

Do you know I believe this without even reading those articles? Because MDMA is nothing new. Really it’s not. All it does is artificially increase serotonin. This is not a change of paradigm, it’s the same old thinking that never ends up helping anyone. And the only people who package drug that does the same thing as an old drug that never helps anyone are sociopaths.

The only people who write in such absolutes have Dunning-Kruger as their middle name.

Re: California study begins screening for MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

No, I was not a savage. And you're not a savage. You're right, the world will act the way they're treated. I try to act kindly when possible. What's wrong with beering the homeless kids? But I don't think much of them. This ain't about me being "good". It's about my right to exist and work and live whether some 18 year old is having a bad family life or not. It's about handling their problems, as I have had to handle…

> Bit of carrot and stick.

The subtle psychology exposed in this sentence. You say you are an anarchist but here you are wanting to control others. You think you are smarter than these suffering people and will treat them like dogs with a treat to get them to do what you want.

> It's about handling their problems, as I have had to handle my own.

Again, you remain the individual. You think if everyone "lived like you" they would be fine. Not everyone can handle their own problems and some peoples problems are bigger and more complicated than yours were.

> So go ahead and shit on the people who were out in the streets protesting

I protested the Iraq war as well, so no idea what you are going on about here. I know it was useless because no one is protesting the U.S. involvement in the war in Ukraine. Everything happening now, including all the propaganda, is the same as it was before the Iraq war.

If you want to know why Portland is failing, look in the mirror.

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