The ups and downs of ecstasy

摘要

The clubbers' drug is now being studied as a treatment for anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. Erika Check charts its rocky road from the psychedelic underground to the psychiatric clinic. On 16 April, a patient suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder visited a psychiatrist's office in Charleston, South Carolina, to try a new experimental treatment. She is the first of 20 people who have signed up for the trial. Like the others, she suffers from flashbacks, nightmares and years of painful memories, despite receiving counselling and antidepressant drugs. Each of the volunteers will undergo further counselling, this time in combination with doses of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA―the active ingredient in the recreational drug ecstasy. The study is a landmark victory for a group that has fought long and hard to bring drugs such as MDMA into the clinic. The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), based in Sarasota, Florida, has been arguing since the mid-1980s that MDMA is a powerful therapeutic tool. Its leader, Rick Doblin, now hopes that a similar study in Spain will be allowed to resume after a two-year hiatus. He is also working with doctors in Israel to plan trials there. And MAPS has donated money to Harvard Medical School in Boston, where psychiatrist John Halpern is planning a trial to test whether MDMA can relieve anxiety and pain in end-stage cancer patients.