13 ms·
I was in the MAPS MDMA for PTSD study
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Alex3917 9y agoIf anyone is interested in learning more about this stuff, the annual Horizons conference is this weekend in NYC: http://www.horizonsnyc.org http://www.horizonsnyc.org And there will most likely be a MAPS event on Saturday night as well. I'm not going this year, but in previous years they've always been good.
- anythingnonidin 9y agoYes: MAPS is hosting a benefit dinner for psychedelic research on Saturday (tomorrow) night http://www.maps.org/nyc2017 http://www.maps.org/nyc2017
- ArchReaper 9y agoIt's a shame that it took so long before we started to truly study the positive uses/effects of drugs like MDMA and Psilocybin. I wonder how long it will take society to really drop the "DARE/DRUGS ARE BAD" mentality and start having more rational discussions about this stuff.
- twalla 9y agoProbably around the same time the alcohol, pharma, and private prison industries stop throwing money at lobbyists if I had to guess.
- coretx 9y agoRevolutions happen when people cease to give a fuck. Stop being afraid for those who govern you and stop blaming the powers who govern. Constructive alternatives exist. There is brain-interfacing equipment at my desk worth 1000 USD tops. I buy MDMA, shrooms and similair substances for a couple of EUR per Gram and don't fear the possible consequences. What I desire though, is people who responsibly join me on my venture for science and humanity since I lack the knowledge and intellect to do a significant contribution on my own. The good news is that there is many like me working with people unlike me and the sharing of information is still mostly free. The tides are in our favour, but only for as long as people invest in it.
- rhizome 9y agoTrump convinced a lot of principled and religious people to vote for him. The time you pine for will come some time after that is no longer possible.
- striking 9y agoIIRC, DARE had a slight opposite effect in communities where it was pushed hardest.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dragonwriter 9y agoIn the studies I've seen, DARE had no measurable effect on either attitudes toward or use of drugs, and a slight effect of promotibg a positive view of law enforcement. So, functionally, it's pro-police PR sold to parents and voters as an anti-drug program.
- WhitneyLand 9y agoFor decades, there has been a near complete effective block on medical research for certain classes of drugs. Timothy Leary and that kind of 60’s stuff chilled legitimate science. Only recently have small changes started to happen, to the point the government, the flipping FDA, has started to think Ectasy (MDMA) might be a viable treatment for some of our most horrible mental illnesses. So many people wonder when science will let us do things. When will we land on the moon, when will we cure cancer (most cancer anyway, a handful have been effectively cured), when will all of mankind benefit from the next great insights? We ask this yet in a lot of ways, we won’t even open our minds enough to give it our best shot. How much can x, mushrooms, ketamine et al really change devastated lives for the better under the right conditions? We may never know. I fully respect the opinion of people who say these drugs shouldn’t ever be used, or that disagree with me on any issue in general. But I will never respect someone who doesn’t want to know the answers and the data. It happens with drugs, gun control, so many political issues, people actually do not want, and even work against collection of, objective data. Of course of any given data set can be biased or flawed, and that has nothing to do with getting the best data you can, iterating, and improving it. If we are opposed to something, it’s ostensibly for a reason right? Why would we ever not want to strengthen our argument, or discard it, based on better understanding of our “reason”?
- tome 9y ago> For decades, there has been a near complete effective block on medical research for certain classes of drugs. In the US. One wonders why such a study wasn't carried out in a less puritan country.
- TheAdamAndChe 9y agoAs a world power and leader of most democratic nations(at the time), sentiments and legislation started in America generally spread to most other nations under its influence.
- cnp 9y agoThis is quickly changing.
- unlmtd1 9y ago> The most dangerous candy you can hand out is candy that makes people start to question the rules of the game. ~ Terrence Mckenna
- cnp 9y agoEvery time articles like this appear on Hacker News it fills me with joy. I have personally watched a much older person heal extensive personal trauma with just one MDMA session, and to this day I regard it as a miracle that seemed impossible prior to the treatment. MAPS is just entering into their Stage III research process after being granted a "breakthrough therapy" by the FDA (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fda-designates-mdma-as-breakthrough-therapy-for-ptsd/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fda-designates-mdma-as-breakthr...) and need all the funds they can muster. The tech community can really step up here. If you have it in you, donate what you can: https://store.maps.org/np/clients/maps/donation.jsp?campaign=11 https://store.maps.org/np/clients/maps/donation.jsp?campaign...
- parasight 9y agoWhat is an MDMA session?
- Mtinie 9y agoControlled, therapeutic dosing of MDMA.
- cnp 9y agoWhen a patient sits with a therapist under the influence of MDMA, which typically consists of two doses (100-120mg initially, then 70mg a few hours later) spread over an 6-8 hour period. The patient is largely experiencing their own internal process, but at times the therapist is there to help guide and comfort. Before and after the session there is conventional psychotherapeutic follow-up.
- moretai 9y agoI feel like there has to be a good amount of people in the world who take psychedelics on a regular basis. At least more so than your average person. I'd imagine they are still broken, shattered, and lost individuals. Maybe some people have accessed some secret knowledge on their trips. But for the vast majority, I doubt that's the case. I am not saying that there is no benefit, especially for an extreme case like this. That relief these people get, a chance to exist without the confusion and pain, and just feel like love. But the high you get is a distraction from the pain you are feeling. It's not the taking of MDMA or Psilocybin that fixes the issues. It's the integration. It's the "lessons" you learn from your experience. But are you learning, or are you just finally looking at what you didn't want to all these years? Do you need to take psychedelics to look? I think we should keep researching, because we should see what is at the end of this tunnel.
- wavefunction 9y agoYou sound like you haven't tried either MDMA or mushrooms from reading your post. I can't speak for everyone but the stuff you think is 'all bullshit' seems to be pretty common experience even among people who don't know Terrence McKenna or George Harrison from lil Jeffy Sessions. And psychedelic use has been deeply ingrained in various human cultures all over the world for thousands (tens of thousands? hundreds of thousands?) of years. Taking psychedelics as part of a religious ceremony or ritual to rid oneself of suffering is part of indigenous traditions in the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia/Oceania. I'd say the historical traditions and these new studies should convince even you that there is no fad involved in human psychotropic use.
- moretai 9y ago>Taking psychedelics as part of a religious ceremony or ritual to rid oneself of suffering is part of indigenous traditions in the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia/Oceania. Could you link me to some research about this? I have heard this talked about, but I haven't found anything reliable.
- tosstossy 9y ago
- anythingnonidin 9y agoIf anyone on Hacker News would like a crash course on the history and potential of psychedelic substances - I cannot recommend the book Acid Test by Tom Shroder more highly. Or, for a shorter view, the article Trip Treatment by Michael Pollan: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/trip-treatment https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/trip-treatment
- leyth 9y agoAnything that alters since of time in the brain is not really a good idea.
- jMyles 9y agoDid you mean "sense" of time? Lots and lots of seemingly benign things have a serious effect on a person's sense of time. Some examples: * Sleep * Travel * Cannabis * Caffeine * Turkey and red wine * Video games or other intense visual engagement * Scuba diving * Intense cardio workouts
- leyth 9y agoWe should not compare natural human behavior to a mind altering chemical substance.
- maxxxxx 9y agoIs there a way to do this in the US or other countries in half ways safe manner? I would be very interested but the people I know who trip regularly don't seem responsible enough for my taste.
- brockwhittaker 9y agoIn the US find a dealer or the dark web, you can buy test kits to test for pure MDMA (Molly), to ensure it’s not mixed with things. Ecstasy can otherwise be mixed with opiates or uppers like speed. I know a lot of pretty responsible users of MDMA (most use during festivals). It’s also best to not do it more than once a month as it’ll significantly decrease the effects. It’s also important to be mindful that in days following the high may come a low where you feel more depressed than usual. This is due to the low seratonin levels your brain will have after you increased them to levels you’ve likely never reached before. I also wouldn’t consider MDMA a “trip” per se. At doses like 80-120mg you will be fully mentally able, you’ll just have rose colored glasses on (a fondness for everyone and everything). Otherwise some other tips are to chew gum as most people have an oral fixation on MDMA and you don’t want to grind your teeth. I hear taking Magnesium before helps as well though I haven’t personally researched that.
- maxxxxx 9y agoI don't know about MDMA in particular but over the last years I have seen two times the effect of trips gone wrong. Interestingly both involved women ripping off their clothes (seriously!) and running around screaming at the top of their lungs for hours. One especially was alone in the middle of the LA National Forest hours away from civilization next to pretty big cliffs. I just happened to hike by and could hear her for miles. I never do drugs so I just want to make sure I have someone close who knows what he/she is doing and can handle the situation if I respond weirdly.
- gnahckire 9y agoPersonally I wouldn't call taking MDMA tripping. Also, those don't really seem like the effects that I have observed others experience which are: - Hypersensitivity to others' emotions - Euphoria - Relaxation and reduced anxiety - Sense of inner peace
- maxwer 9y ago... until you stop taking the drug.
- ThrustVectoring 9y agoNot according to the study. Psychoactive drugs don't just change how you're feeling for a period of time - they also change how your brain is wired. That's what addiction is: drugs altering the brain into one that more wants to take that drug. Now, MDMA isn't particularly prone to causing addiction. It is prone to causing lasting changes in how people relate to themselves and others, and a combination of personal anecdotes and studies suggest it's for the better.
- jMyles 9y agoWhat is your basis for saying this?
- anythingnonidin 9y agoSee this from earlier research results http://www.mdmaptsd.org/research-category.html http://www.mdmaptsd.org/research-category.html > A long-term follow-up of patients who received MDMA-assisted psychotherapy revealed that overall benefits were maintained an average of 3.8 years later. (This is after 2 total sessions) See here for more http://www.mdmaptsd.org/infographic.html http://www.mdmaptsd.org/infographic.html
- ada1981 9y agoCheck out the book TRUST, SURRENDER, RECEIVE by Anne Other. It features the history, politics, science and first hand accounts of 40 people who used MDMA for healing PTSD and trauma in an underground practice. Very powerful book. Http://bit.ly/mdmabook
- noddy1 9y agoAs I get older, so much of what I grew up being totally excited with but which was considered fringe and counterculture is now being recognized as truly revolutionary. I remember as a medical student on placement asking a palliative care physician about whether they had considered the use of MDMA in end of life care to provide dying people and their families with a potential method of spending some really incredible time together. She scoffed at the idea and continued prescribing the same old crap. 10 years later psychiatrists are saying the currently MDMA, ketamine and the psychedelics are providing the most exciting breakthroughs in modern psychiatric drugs in decades.
- pdfernhout 9y agoFrom a comment elsewhere by "Brian" on moving past psychological trauma: http://www.hughhowey.com/our-silos-leak/ http://www.hughhowey.com/our-silos-leak/ "Cognitive behavioral therapists don’t even bother trying to figure out the why — because when most people get their so-called “epiphany” explaining why they’re feeling so badly, the knowledge doesn’t give them any clue as to how to feel better and be happy. All they know is, X and Y and Z happened to me many moons ago, and that’s why I feel like crap now. But what do I actually do about it? Bandler and Grinder figured it out forty plus years ago during the infancy of NLP too: focus on what you want, focus on what makes you happy, model people who are successful and happy and voila …. you’ll move in that direction too. Like you said above, Hugh, thinking about something that bothers you over and over is just another way of reexperiencing the pain and torment. Unless you’re coming at the memory from a fresh perspective, it’s like rubbing salt in the wound." So, if a drug like MDMA helps someone see a memory from a fresh perspective, maybe it could help? But otherwise, the general advice above seems useful.