FDA Approves Large Clinical Trial For Ecstasy As Relief For PTSD Patients (arstechnica.com) 151
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday approved the first large-scale, phase 3 clinical trial of ecstasy in patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the New York Times reported. The regulatory green-light follows six smaller-scale trials that showed remarkable success using the drug. In fact, some of the 130 PTSD patients involved in those trials say ecstasy -- or 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) -- saved them from the devastating impacts of PTSD after more than a decade of seeing no improvement with the other treatment options available. Currently, the best of those established treatment options can only improve symptoms in 60 to 70 percent of PTSD patients, one expert noted. However, after one of the early MDMA studies, the drug had completely erased all traces of symptoms in two-thirds of PTSD patients. The new Phase 3 trial will involve at least 230 patients and is planned to start in 2017. Like the other trials, it is backed by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), a nonprofit created in 1985 to advocate for the medical benefits and use of psychedelic drugs, such as MDMA and marijuana. Also like the others, the new, larger trial will involve a limited number of MDMA treatments administered by professional psychotherapists as part of a therapy program. In previous trials, patients spent 12 weeks in a psychotherapy program, including three eight-hour sessions in which they took MDMA and talked through traumatic memories.
Here It Comes... (Score:5, Funny)
If this proves to be a success, then this treatment will definitely be something to rave about.
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Re:So basically.... (Score:4, Interesting)
The cure for a LOT of things is essentially 'a drug trip'.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
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He sounds like a fungi.
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Years ago, I had pneumonia, and the antibiotic I was put on for it was z-pack (I am allergic to penicillin), and between that, the super-tylenol and one other medication, I had some very strange hallucinations.
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Re:So basically.... (Score:5, Insightful)
...going on a drug trip is the cure? Might as well just get drunk, it's cheaper.
Liver cancer and alcoholism is cheaper? Please, do tell. Oh wait, let me get my boots on. I have a feeling the flow of bullshit is going to be rather high.
Dammit, I know I put my chest waders around here somewhere...
Re:So basically.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, the renal failure often associated with ecstasy isn't exactly cheap on its own. Seriously, the stuff has most of the side effects of meth. Unlike weed, it is one of drugs that is most definitely worse for you than alcohol is. The argument is, do the benefits outweigh the harm. But make no mistake, only an idiot would say it's not dangerous.
Pot is still considered "deadly" and has earned us the Incarcerated States of America moniker, and yet we legally support cigarettes and alcohol killing 550,000 Americans every year.
Oh, and let's not forget to thank Big Pharma for bringing good old fashioned opium back into fashion so elegantly, resulting in another 20,000 deaths annually.
MDMA looks like coffee when compared to current legal alternatives.
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Well, the renal failure often associated with ecstasy isn't exactly cheap on its own. Seriously, the stuff has most of the side effects of meth. Unlike weed, it is one of drugs that is most definitely worse for you than alcohol is. The argument is, do the benefits outweigh the harm. But make no mistake, only an idiot would say it's not dangerous.
That's BULLSHIT. [thevespiary.org]
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To date, the most consistent findings associate subtle cognitive, particularly memory, impairments with heavy ecstasy use. However, the evidence cannot be considered definite and the issues of possible pre-existing traits or the effects of polydrug use are not resolved.
~~~ Gouzoulis-Mayfrank E and Daumann J (2006) Neurotoxicity of methylenedioxyamphetamines (MDMA; ecstasy) in humans: How strong is the evidence for persistent brain damage? Addiction 101: 348–361.
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Re: Here It Comes... (Score:5, Informative)
Ha, ha, ha! Good one. But seriously, it is nigh impossible to function on ecstasy, the FDA is a bad joke, basically a public face for big pharma. At this rate it won't be long before most Americans are just drug-addled zombies, be they prescription or street drugs, and the rest of the world will run circles around us. Always blows me away that so many people in the valley are so willfully blind about their drug addiction. It's why ideas that sound like genius under the influence make people in other places scratch heir heads and go, 'Whatever.'.
I know this is slashdot, but.... You didn't read TFA.
"improvements lasted more than a year after therapy"
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"improvements lasted more than a year after therapy"
Which is a good thing, given that it's not actually possible to use it continuously (at least not effectively, due to depleted serotonin). Which is also why folks tend not to get addicted to molly.
For this exact same reason, I bet the pharmaceutical industry does not like this idea. At all.
From my own personal experience, I absolutely credit occasional recreational use of MDMA (and visiting the associated raves, I guess) with helping me out of a not-so-mild depression couple of years back.
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I didn't read the study but therapeutic doses are not necessarily the same as recreative doses. I bet you are perfectly able to function on a daily 10mg of MDMA. It won't get you high but it might be sufficient for treatment.
Also, ill people may not react to specific drugs like healthy people. For example ADHD patients can take pharmaceutical grade speed and meth as part of their treatment and it will just make them feel normal, not high.
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Is MDMA on a lower schedule than pot...? Seriously?
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The answer is simple.
Decades ago, when they were legalizing alcohol, marijuana was the drug of choice for African Americans.
The policy was driven by racism.
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according to H.R. Haldeman the Nixon administration saw heroin as a tool for disenfranchising blacks and pot as a tool for disenfranchising 'hippies'.
of course the disparate rates of drug sentencing made disenfranchising vast numbers of black citizens a huge part of the actual effect of cannabis hysteria so it is likely a part of why the policy has continued so long.
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Schedule II includes meth, and coke... go figure
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My main question is....You can do experimental tests with MDMA, but you can't with marijuana?!?!
Is MDMA on a lower schedule than pot...? Seriously?
MDMA probably has the advantage of having previously been a clinical drug. Only later did it get used for recreational purposes and get scheduled.
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" But seriously, it is nigh impossible to function on ecstasy"
Bullshit. I've had zero problems functioning on real MDMA (opposed to the speed and heroin mixballs people sell as 'ecstacy'.)
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People with real experience, unlike anonymous children such as yourself, believe me.
I don't care what people do (Score:2, Insightful)
As long as I can CCW.
DEA already has rescheduled and overruled itself (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's the ruling [erowid.org]
here is the story [norml.org]
I don't know the process here between FDA and DEA, which has which ultimate powers regarding final say on drug scheduling, but I have a feeling the drug is going to be rescheduled by the FDA (it is a "good," drug, a miracle drug, and the benefits to patients far outweighs the damage to those who abuse drugs), and then something fishy will happen at the DEA, and someone will overstep their authority, just like last time, and it will again be decided in court who gets their way, the nanny-staters and asshole control freaks or the doctors, scientists, and patients that need the drug.
Re:DEA already has rescheduled and overruled itsel (Score:5, Interesting)
To clarify what catmistake means by "just like last time": MDMA was a psychotherapy drug used for, among other things, PTSD. That's how it got its start, before breaking out into the recreational scene. When the FDA considered banning it, there was a court hearing on the topic, which turned into a constant stream of psychiatrists stepping up and saying, "Don't do this!". The FDA at the time was unaware that it was used in psychotherapy. The judge ruled that it should be classed as a Schedule III drug, aka something with an established medical use but also the potential for abuse. However, the DEA administrator overrode him and classified it as a Schedule I drug. The DEA was sued by a Harvard psychiatrist for misclassification, and he won; the court stripped the DEA's Schedule I classification. The DEA responded by simply reclassifying it yet again as Schedule I.
The scheduling has made research difficult over the years, but the widespread attestment to its effectiveness is compelling. Research in other regards has shown that the act of recalling a memory also involves, to some degree, writing it back; there's been treatment researched for trauma wherein the patient recalls memories while on drugs that induce mild amnesia. I wouldn't be surprised if something similar is at work here.
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Actually, their constitutional authority to exist is that the Executive Branch calls them into existence to execute the provisions of laws passed by the Legislative branch. Drugs are scheduled as different levels of controlled substances in different states (Florida's controlled substance schedule is hilarious--most food is illegal). In theory, the Federal Government doesn't have the power to enforce in a state which has passed law declining Federal enforcement; however, if the manufacture and sale of dr
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Actually, we could pass a constitutional amendment banning the private printing of United States money if we wanted. That doesn't mean the private printing of US money isn't already illegal or bannable under Federal law.
Frequently, the role of a constitutional amendment is to establish the constitution of a country (surprising, that). For example: nothing in the U.S. Constitution establishes any sort of equal rights treatment for gay marriage--or any recognition of any marriage--and yet we had a short
But YAY!!! government, right? (Score:1)
We have unelected bureaucrats effectively making laws outside the legislative process.
And that's OK WHY?!?!?!
But hey, remember to yell at (other) people to "PAY YOUR FAIR SHARE!!!" so we can get MORE of this bullshit from our overweening government.
Re:DEA already has rescheduled and overruled itsel (Score:5, Interesting)
Given that the FDA's purpose is to approve drugs for their therapeutic value, why don't they have the ability to overrule the DEA? Why does the DEA have the authority to block access to drugs with a compelling case for therapeutic value to the extent that you can't even perform research to prove their therapeutic value?
I mean, I can't escape the (only slightly) tinfoil hat explanation that they do it to perpetuate and expand their power and ensure they have a near immutable list of banned substances to justify their power and budget. And of course they hang onto marijuana as schedule I because it provides the vast bulk of "illegal" drug use, and complete legalization might usher into public consciousness the idea that the entire premise of the DEA is suspect.
It seems highly likely that most drugs with a recreational potential are likely to have some kind of therapeutic use as well. I guess we're just fortunate that opiates, amphetamines and tranquilizers had a long and mostly irrefutable clinical history of therapeutic value before the DEA existed or they would have long ago scheduled them away.
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I doubt this issue will really come up. MDMA is an amphetamine that isn't really anymore dangerous or prone to abuse than methamphetamine. It will be classified as Schedule II, if it is approved.
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Schedule I drugs are also commonly used by undesirable people like hippies, progressives and minorities.
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Given that the FDA's purpose is to approve drugs for their therapeutic value, why don't they have the ability to overrule the DEA? Why does the DEA have the authority to block access to drugs with a compelling case for therapeutic value to the extent that you can't even perform research to prove their therapeutic value?
I mean, I can't escape the (only slightly) tinfoil hat explanation that they do it to perpetuate and expand their power and ensure they have a near immutable list of banned substances to justify their power and budget. And of course they hang onto marijuana as schedule I because it provides the vast bulk of "illegal" drug use, and complete legalization might usher into public consciousness the idea that the entire premise of the DEA is suspect.
It seems highly likely that most drugs with a recreational potential are likely to have some kind of therapeutic use as well. I guess we're just fortunate that opiates, amphetamines and tranquilizers had a long and mostly irrefutable clinical history of therapeutic value before the DEA existed or they would have long ago scheduled them away.
Cinch that tin foil hat down tight for this one...
If you really want to dig deep on this, look how killers like cigarettes, alcohol, and opiates are all legal, while marijuana is not. Understand that the more harmless a drug is, the less of a chance it will be accepted legally.
Sounds crazy, but here's why. Harm to humans not only helps manage finite resources via population control, but it also creates jobs, secures patents, and bolsters revenue.
How many jobs have been created treating alcoholism and all
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I'm on board with most of that, but if economics was a good enough explanation we wouldn't have seen the DEA making opiates much harder to obtain -- more intensive prescription databases to get doctor shoppers, more intensive audits of prescribing physicians, and the rescheduling of hydrocodone from III to II. The irony, of course, is that it has jacked up street prices and moved many low-level pill users accustomed to uniform dosing to street heroin, which despite DEA enforcement has become cheaper than m
Re: DEA already has rescheduled and overruled itse (Score:1)
I don't know the specifics of this case but it's not unusual for a court to rule that a decision was made improperly. It doesn't necessarily mean that it will be reversed. That's why we have such things as retrials.
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With Trump and the republitards at the helm you can kiss your miracle drug goodbye.
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But, (Score:4, Funny)
On the other hand, patients will suffer from low nutrition issues due to the Dragons in the kitchen.
Re:But, (Score:5, Funny)
Just chase your mom back to her room and you'll be fine.
I think kudos go to Tim Ferriss for this (Score:2)
IIRC Tim Ferriss mentioned throwing in his influence and leverage in the background to advance research and approval of unconventional medication in the area of PTSD treatment. IIRC he specifically mentioned this trial and it might even be prepared under his guidance. (It's in some Tim Ferriss Show podcast somewhere IIRC)
AFAIK he has been doing some brain-drug experimentation himself, having owned a brain-drug company before his success as a bestseller author. He also covers brain drugs in his book "The 4-h
This is better how? (Score:1)
From the summary (no, I didn't read the article): "Currently, the best of those established treatment options can only improve symptoms in 60 to 70 percent of patients" and " the drug had completely erased all traces of symptoms in two-thirds of PTSD patients." To me, the 60 to 70 percent sounds very close to the two-thirds of patients (roughly 66.667%). So, this is better how? I did see in the summary that this drug is reaching some patients who were not helped by other therapy (perhaps part of the 30-4
Re:This is better how? (Score:5, Insightful)
From the summary (no, I didn't read the article): "Currently, the best of those established treatment options can only improve symptoms in 60 to 70 percent of patients" and " the drug had completely erased all traces of symptoms in two-thirds of PTSD patients." To me, the 60 to 70 percent sounds very close to the two-thirds of patients (roughly 66.667%). So, this is better how?
Re-read what you wrote, and consider the difference between "improve symptoms" and "completely erase symptoms." IT's the difference between improvement and elimination.
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It's almost like they need to do a large clinical trial to actually find out. If only they'd do one...
Someone else pointed out the difference between "improve" and "completely erased". But for someone who has a lot of mental disorders running through the family tree and with friends, there is vast differences for what works for one person but not another even for similar symptoms. I'd be extremely surprised if the 60-70% and tw
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Assumptions not necessarily true:
- that both groups are completely intersecting
- existing treatment is as easy (or cheap/fast/etc.) as treatment with MDMA
- that MDMA treatment is fully explored and mature so it's effectiveness is maximized
- improving PTSD symptoms == erased all traces
Now, I'm not one to believe any drug magically erases PTSD that easily. Nothing to date has proven to simply erase a mental illness (well, short of death.) Long term side effects I'm sure are being monitored, though you can a
The truth.... (Score:5, Informative)
Myself and others who actually suffer from PTSD (In my case CPTSD) are always looking for a way out. It's a disorder caused by experiencing severe trauma- in my case the traumatic experience went for a period of 15 years as a kid. Child abuse victims and those who were abused as POWs are the ones who suffer the most from this disease. But remember this disease is caused by traumatic things happening around you, or worse, traumatic things done to you.
This is a disease that is inflicted on it's victims both others.
You never really get out of the PTSD symptoms... flashbacks keep repeating. Your current day relationships are held hostage to your condition. In some cases (like mine) it's accompanied by a sleep disorder. And the combination of flashbacks and lack of sleep can lead to psychosis. As you age you become unable to "tough it out" by staying up for a couple of days. So working becomes difficult or impossible. I used to be an IT executive.
Sure there are treatments like "Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprogramming". And they help a little. Or you can drug yourself out. Or just do the best you can and hope your loved ones are willing to keep you in food and housing. As a non veteran my chances at disability through Social Security are zero.
The only drug that has ever worked for me to totally eradicate the symptoms- are narcotics. If I can legally obtain them for another legitimate issue then I get to be normal for a few days, or a week. Norco and Hydrocodone seem to work the best.
So if someone told me I could get my PTSD treated at a pain clinic with narcotics- under doctors supervision I'd be there in a second. The hell I go through is shattering.
So- this new treatment is making me so happy. I want to get in on the trial... or try the therapy as soon as possible.
If you have a heart for people who are truly suffering. Please support these trials and be supportive of the idea. You'll be helping a lot of people.
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I am in my early thirties and I live with Asperger's Syndrome. I didn't know about Asperger's until my mid twenties. My entire childhood was spent being ostracised by other children for being different, and video games were my escape. Emotional abuse was just a part of life for me. I never considered myself a victim of PTSD, but I do remember a while back, I had a rather shocking flashback to repressed memories when my wife an
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My experiences were twofold..
At home I was severely physically and emotionally abused. At school I was ostracized and occasionally beaten.
The school part of it was not the kid's fault... I did fine in school until 2nd grade- when home events escalated to levels that really screwed me up. I was a cultural American-Italian kid in a Jewish neighborhood. And probably appeared kinda of autistic or "off". The abuse and being a social outcast lasted until I was 17- when a state agency rescued me and force my paren
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I too suffer from CPTSD or as it is known by the WHO ICD-10 F62.0 (Enduring personality change after catastrophic
experience.) I was sexually and physically abused by my primary school principal when I was 10 (the perpetrator was criminally charged). Life is hell for me. Normal social interactions, trust in people and institutions, holding down jobs, participating in education, and keeping sane relationships is near impossible. I am constantly on my own suicide watch. I found a niche for myself being a lone
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Thanks for your post. I understand everything you said.
Hang in there- I'm on your side.
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No it is fucking not. You have no idea what that shit is. Also it is probably made from Chinese precursors smuggled in by the Mexican Mafia so enjoy taking something that has the karmic equivalent of plutonium all over it. (Yes I know that is not how karma works.)
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Sorry to tell you- I'm pretty liberal. And the fact I speak out about these issues more or less defines me as an SJW.
Shrooms, too. (Score:5, Interesting)
A single dose of magic mushrooms can make people with severe anxiety and depression better for months, according to a landmark pair of new studies. [theatlantic.com]
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Totally believe it. A modest dose of shrooms can have a big impact on just about anyone. It allows/forces you to step outside of your normal patterns and thoughts and allows you to actually have a fresh approach to your reality. A key part that differentiates a trip from normally trying to evaluate your life is that you don't have a lot of choice in the matter, its a ride you can't just hop off of when it gets tense - even if you try to veg out and watch tv or just listen to music its still happening.
It
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A single dose of magic mushrooms can make people with severe anxiety and depression better for months, according to a landmark pair of new studies. [theatlantic.com]
Research into cannabis, MDMA, LSD, etc was the most promising area of psychiatric research in the 1950s. A mental health revolution was on the horizon until a bunch of non-scientists got involved and shut the whole thing down.
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From what I understood, it was indeed promising but it never went beyond that.
The problem with psychedelics is that while we did have some very good results, it was too unpredictable. You talk about non-scientists but there is nothing scientists hate more than unpredictability.
When a psychiatrist gives a drug to a patient, he wants to know the effects beforehand, he wants to know how things can go wrong, what to do next, etc.. You can't have it with LSD. I don't think we went passed the point of throwing it
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From what I understood, it was indeed promising but it never went beyond that. The problem with psychedelics is that while we did have some very good results, it was too unpredictable. You talk about non-scientists but there is nothing scientists hate more than unpredictability. When a psychiatrist gives a drug to a patient, he wants to know the effects beforehand, he wants to know how things can go wrong, what to do next, etc.. You can't have it with LSD. I don't think we went passed the point of throwing it at a patient and see how it sticks.
One of the last potential use of psychedelics is for treating cluster headaches. A benign but extremely painful condition. Interestingly, the most effective treatments are all hit-or-miss repurposed drugs, psychedelics are of these.
Every drug has potential side effects and some level of unpredictability. If you were to measure the negative side effects and the benefits of commercial prescription antidepressants and mood disorder drugs, the net gain is very small or even negative in some cases. Some antidepressants on the market actually perform worse than a placebo. That's not a particularly high bar for these drugs to clear.
The only reason these drugs weren't fully researched is because they were made very difficult to study,
The FDA wants to avoid being Trumped (Score:2)
Coming soon: a sudden change of heart on allowing imports of those generic medications that keep being shkrelied.
OOHRAH! (Score:3)
What's the intended outcome here? (Score:2)
So are patients going to be trading one form of delusions for another? That really makes no sense to me but perhaps I'm simply looking at it from an engineering standpoint.
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MDMA helps to turn off the fear center of your brain. Once a sufferer can get past the fear, normal psycho-therapy techniques can be used to help a patient to basically "re-program" themselves to overcome their problems. There is no delusional trade off. Re-program means that it allows them to see what is causing their chronic stress and come to terms with it and put it behind them. The inability to overcome fear is stopping them getting to that point like most people do when they encounter anything traumat
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So are patients going to be trading one form of delusions for another?
"Delusion" isn't the right word for people suffering from PTSD. I haven't experienced it myself, but as a former member of the US military, I have seen what the effects are; they vary widely from what people can mistake for delusions, to what people can mistake for "ordinary" depression/withdrawal.
I don't do drugs quite as often as I used to, but if I had to pick one to do right now, it would be mushrooms. The effects of that drug, I think, can be fairly referred to as delusions. The symptoms of PTSD vary m
The dosing is important, it's for talk therapy (Score:1)
FYI The dosing is important, it is for talk therapy. I saw a lecture from one of the main doctors who does this research⦠There are formal quantifiable skills for evaluating PTSD. The highest success rate is finding the dose of the drug that allows you to have extremely effective talk therapy, the drug that helps you process information about traumatic events without your system going wild and then shutting down . But too much of the drug and you're having a good time but you are not verbal in
Few weeks back did MDMA first time since 1997 (Score:2)
Got some powder. I just did smaller amounts to get a nice feeling. I know from past experience you can get cranky as hell a few days after E but with small amounts if was interesting how clear my head was for a few days after wards but there was a issue. If I did enough to really start feeling it my heart would race and get some crazy palpations once in a while. When you're 20 you don't care but at 42 lol the irregular heart beats are noticed more.
Erase and rebuild? (Score:2)
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Isn't it ironic those that shout many illegal drugs are 'gateway drugs' completely ignore RX opioids? I've seen countless people in my community go from them to heroin when they couldn't afford/get their pills.
Looks like the war on drugs worked on some levels, if it isn't guberment approved must be one of dem gateway drugs.
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I've seen countless people in my community go from them to heroin when they couldn't afford/get their pills.
I'd move to a different community if you can!
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MDMA is a gateway drug
So is milk. You can fuck right off with that brain-dead argument.
-jcr
Milk is one of the ingredients in Cake: http://mirror.uncyc.org/wiki/C... [uncyc.org]
Re:let's be honest here (Score:5, Funny)
So is milk.
Huh?
Use of milk leads to interest in breasts?
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So is milk.
Huh?
Almost every hard drug user has had milk at some point in their lives. QED!
Re:let's be honest here (Score:5, Interesting)
MDMA is a gateway drug, and we shouldn't be risking addiction by patients who already have mental health issues.
While we thank the DEA for their view on this sensitive matter; And no doubt you have similar views on Morphine. Sadly your 'ain't gonna have no hippie scientists givin' kids drugs' attitude belies the fact you clearly have no concept of how utterly devastating a life crippled with PTSD can be.
You and your ilk are basically everything that's wrong with knee-jerk legislators across the western world.
'I don't understand science, but this could look bad in the news papers, therefore I must ban it...... speaking as a parent..... '
Re:let's be honest here (Score:5, Insightful)
What is a "gateway drug"? You know why "gateway drugs" are leading to other drugs? Because the only way to get them is at some dealer who wants to sell you stuff that has a bigger cut for him.
MDMA a gateway drug for Heroin. Yeeeah, that makes sense. "Hey, I had this one drug that was allowing me to dance all night and party, why not try something now that makes me extremely drowsy and apathetic, that's exactly what I want."
C'mon. At least make some credible claims. I smoked some MJ and I even had a few Es back when they were still made of good stuff, but why the fuck would I have wanted to shoot some junk into my veins?
If you want to look for "gateways" to heroin, look at society. Society is what pushes people into the arms of drugs like heroin that promise an exit from this world.
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Actually, you're full of shite. Seriously.
If you're going to ketamine...you're going to ketamine, whether or not you take MDMA. The idiot notion that it's a "gateway" is ludicrous. The man's premise is sound...YOURS, not so much so.
As an observation, ketamine doesn't even remotely produce the same effects as MDMA. Let's go over what these substances are...
MDMA - Psychoactive Amphetamine. Euphoriant.
Ketamine - Dissassociative Anesthetic. Doesn't bring euphoria, produces a disconnected state. Used as
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IKR... people find a drug that they like and stick with it. The only time this isn't the case is when said person is trying to escape their societal jail cell... which means they have other problems to begin with.
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There is definitely a gateway between MDMA and ketamine, even though the effects are different.
Where you can find E, you can usually find K if you look hard enough. I know several people who do both in similar contexts. I never tried K but seen from the outside, it looks like great fun at parties.
Ketamine effects are highly dose dependent. At low doses, it can be considered a social drug, like alcohol. Only with higher doses one can become completely disconnected, resulting in the "K-hole", or even complete
Re:let's be honest here (Score:5, Insightful)
Why'd I want to switch from K to H?
Heroin is most of all a "get me out of here, no matter the cost" drug. I do not know a SINGLE person who reached for Heroin who wasn't already at the "I don't give a fuck about my life anymore" stage. It's not like people don't know what heroin does to them. You pretty much cannot NOT know what it really means to shoot that crap into your body. The problem is that people fully KNOW what's going on, and they STILL do it.
If you want proof for that, take a look at the drug Crocodile (Desomorphin). Do NOT Google it. Seriously. Do not. The pictures you'll see will stay with you for the rest of your life. That crap makes your body rot. Literally. You rot away alive. And people know that and STILL do it.
If you can keep people from getting to the point where they don't give a fuck about their life anymore, there simply is no longer a market for heroin. Or worse shit.
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This is actually a sad case, but even though there are those cases and they are not as rare as one would think, they are not the main route for heroin. People addicted to painkillers are usually reaching for solutions that are closer to legal prescription drugs.
Heroin, at least to my knowledge, is an exit drug, used by people who have pretty much reached the end.
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Same thing if you drink the whole bottle of Delsym...
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Most research on drugs like MDMA and THC are attempts to bypass regulations and enable recreational use of substances that are dangerous and have no medicinal value. Substances like these are classified as schedule I by the DEA because it's proven that they have no legitimate uses. I'll trust the professionals at the DEA instead of a couple of drug addicts claiming to be doing scientific research. If anything, this proves the power of the placebo effect. There was no way to administer MDMA to patients because of restrictions, therefore any improvement was due to the placebo effect. Inevitably, patients prescribed these useless drugs to supposedly treat their conditions will become addicted and move on to even more dangerous drugs like heroin. MDMA is a gateway drug, and we shouldn't be risking addiction by patients who already have mental health issues.
I feel just slightly stupider after reading this post. I hope you're going for irony, but it doesn't seem like it.
Re: (Score:2)
Does it? I'm not sure on the symptoms... If so it's all about which will lead to the best quality of life. If PTSD is making life unbearable to begin with, maybe some minor brain damage is a preferable option? If it's monitored by a doctor and medical staff to make sure the damage done is as limited as possible.
The researchers were tripping (Score:2)
TFS says:
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is backed by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), a nonprofit created in 1985 to advocate for the medical benefits and use of psychedelic drugs, such as MDMA and marijuana.
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Group formed to advocate for the use of psychedelic drugs, because they like using psychedelic drugs, claims that using psychedelic drugs is good.
Re: (Score:2)
So, it's news to you that drugs have side effects?
All drugs can be dangerous. All drugs are dangerous if taken to overdose. (Look up the effects of an acetaminophen overdose sometime, and you can buy that without so much as a prescription.) And also consider that it's currently illegal, meaning the stuff out there is of varying quality and cut and produced with god only knows what. A real pharmaceutical with strict manufacturing standards and quality control will, by definition, be at least more safe.
But it
Re:what???? (Score:4, Interesting)
Are you fucking kidding me? Ecstacy? Everyone freaks out about weed being legalized. But, the FDA says, "Hey guys, try out ecstacy for your mental issues!". Wow, what an ass backwards fucking world we live in here in the US of A.
I think it's interesting the two drugs that are legal - alcohol and cigarettes, two drugs that do absolutely nothing for you at all - are legal, and the drugs that might open your mind up to realise how you're being fucked every day of your life? Those drugs are against the law. Coincidence?
- Bill Hicks