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US could soon approve MDMA therapy

nature.com

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Re: US could soon approve MDMA therapy

#11
post #8
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean that we're going back to the Moon? Maybe even Mars?

No, a MK Ultra reboot.

Pretty sure that is happening too. You might even be an unwitting participant right now.

Bet Manson type murders will happen as well. Race riots. A Kennedy type young president will show up and get assassinated. There will be a new space race, this time with China. AI Beatles-type mega band will emerge. A crowdsourced Woodstock some place. Sit ins, sleep ins. People on TV growing out their hair.

Time is a flat circle man. History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.

Re: US could soon approve MDMA therapy

#12

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I think we're doing just fine with Rick Doblin at MAPS. To pull a quote from Hunter S Thompson: "We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled that 60's. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "consciousness expansion" without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him seriously...…

I love this quote so much . It is rly nailing a certain view of the 60s and explains much of the coming 70s. There is also another quote in the book about reaching the high water mark and the wave coming back….

Awesomeness book about the end of the 60s

Re: US could soon approve MDMA therapy

#13

Can someone share any relevant experience with this? Best would be if you did it properly under supervision of clinical professional, or if you are a professional here, by any chance. Doesn’t matter if it’s US or not.

My partners mother was depressed and shut in for years. She had been through every process, medical and otherwise, to try and find an escape hatch, window, anything.

She eventually was accepted into a limited program in Victoria, BC for ketamine treatments. 3 large doses rendering intense trips that lasted the course of hours in a clinic under the supervision of doctors and therapists. After the first session she was fundamentally changed. After the third she looked back wondering how she ever could have felt so low.

It’s not a silver bullet, she required some therapeutic work afterward and may do another session in the future. But it still stands that the person she is today (travelling, seeing friends, seeing family, etc) is radically different and restored compared to just a few years ago. She full heartedly credits those sessions, but also doesn’t feel a strong need to return-just to get on with life while she’s still in possession of her functioning body.

Re: US could soon approve MDMA therapy

#14

Can someone share any relevant experience with this? Best would be if you did it properly under supervision of clinical professional, or if you are a professional here, by any chance. Doesn’t matter if it’s US or not.

My friend has been one of the clinicians on the MAPS trials in Boston. He says it's abundantly clear that people are able to have powerful internal experiences of emotional opening, fear-reduction, release of bodily tension, and self-compassion and new understanding. And amazingly he says that these experiences are somewhat durable — people end up making all sorts of positive changes in their lives after these sessions (like giving up substances of abuse or feeling able to go off medication). And all of this has been backed up by the data. Any specifics you're looking for?

Re: US could soon approve MDMA therapy

#16
post #6

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I’ve been disappointed lately by the strategy of some lobbying organizations to use science to push an agenda that has nothing to do with science, and more to do with some spirituality coming as a consequence of individual psychedelic awakenings. The psychedelic community still has a lot of work to do in order to manage noetic insights in a rational manner.

Except there are pretty strong indications of medical benefits to MDMA and psilocybin in therapy for things like PTSD and treatment resistant depression. Studies are frustratingly limited because of the extreme scheduling of the drugs that lasted for decades.

Re: US could soon approve MDMA therapy

#18
Personally, I left tech in large part to become a therapist doing psychedelic-assisted clinical work when it becomes legal. It really does seem like it can be a potent tool for relieving great suffering. You can read a little about my story here: http://glench.com/WhyIQuitTechAndBecameATherapist/

Re: US could soon approve MDMA therapy

#19
I take valafaxine / effexor for depression and I remember for the first week or so getting slightly high like as if I'd taken a low dosage of E which was my drug of choice (I had a highly enjoyable albeit mistaken early 20s). I often wonder if there a correlation between my predilection for MDMA and my success with venlafaxine (which saved my life).

On a political note it is perverse how alcohol which often renders people violent and risk taking is celebrated, whilst a substance that causes one to dance, hug and spends hours discussing and friendly debating Marxist political theory is distained.

Re: US could soon approve MDMA therapy

#20
As an outsider, that American obsession with prescripted medication seems maddening. Many of these conditions are caused by underlying societal factors and are nowhere near as widespread outside the US. The American solution is to throw more pills at the problem, or ostracise the patients not willing to take that route. Even children are offered an ever larger number of pills, and are constantly challenged about their self-identification.
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