> I’m arguing against comparing mdma with ecstasy pills
Which is pretty terrible itself, powders and crystals can be just as adulterated as pills. Relying on sight and taste to tell what you've got is very unreliable.
> As an outsider, that American obsession with prescripted medication seems maddening.
Totally sympathize with that viewpoint, but I'm not sure if this commenter knows that MDMA will not be a prescription medication — no one is prescribed or goes home with MDMA. The treatment in the trials is only 3 medication-assisted therapy sessions with normal preparation and integration therapy sessions before and after. After those 3 MDMA sessions, the patient doesn't take MDMA again.
It's been clear since the beginning that it's psychedelic-assisted therapy — not just psychedelics — that makes the treatment effective.
Does it though? In my (and friend's) experience it intensifies emotions and senses but doesn't produce anything new, nor is it so intense as to be a "deliriant". I can't help but think people are labeling this drug over broadly without controlled research, because of its illegal status.
> Ecstasy is pretty stupid as far as mind-drugs go. You experience intense happiness, pleasure, indeed ecstasy for no reason.
There's a reason why MDMA has had such a long history of use in psychotherapy, and it's not just because other psychedelics were taken off the table in 1971. When used in the right context, it can be a very useful tool for introspection and processing difficult emotions.
> Now, MDMA was bullshit in its own way, of course
I really don't get why you said that (I use the stuff myself). Do you really think that, or is that partly an externally-acquired anti-drugs message, perhaps picked up from school in drug 'education' lessons, or am I being uncharitable?
> How is it possible that a retired psychotherapist is using interchangably MDMA word and Extasy word, making a tremendous mistake in your own professional field?
Because he was not giving a personal opinion - he was talking about a media report:
> media went wild over reports that a 18 year old girl (Leah Betts) had died from taking MDMA
> A primary issue was functional unblinding, or the ability of participants to tell whether they received a placebo or active drug... More than 90% of people in the MDMA group and 75% in the placebo group correctly guessed their treatment arm in the second Phase 3 trial.
Why are you telling the control group they are going to get potentially get high? Why didn't you pick a much lower dosage?
I think there is a treatment here, I dont think this vote was wrong. Do some better science on this and ask again later.
> the drug manufacturer mislabeled the MDMA bottle as Methamphetamine, a much more damaging drug
It's not even so much that (comparing two drugs like that doesn't really make sense). It's that the dosage administered was far more than what would be comparable for methamphetamine. 6 mg/kg of one drug is not necessarily comparable to 6 mg/kg of another drug... 300 mg of methamphetamine for a ~110 lb. person over 9 hours is absurd - the maximum prescribed dose of Adderall (d-amphetamine) is generally 40-60mg per day, and that's only for individuals with high tolerance (or very severe problems such as narcolepsy). These are oral dosages, mind you, whereas the study used subcutaneous injection, which amplifies the effect of the drug further. Then account for the fact that methamphetamine crosses the blood-brain barrier more easily than its cousin that lacks the methyl group, and you start to wonder why only one of the five monkeys died.
Even before they realized the drug mixup, the Ricaurte, et. al. study is so flawed that it's almost laughable that it was published in the first place. Your study is intended to simulate the environment of a club/rave? 20% of your subjects died after what you considered to be a moderate dose, and you didn't think that was cause to question your methods? Raves may not be the healthiest places in the world, but if real life were anything close to what those data suggest, the morning after a concert or rave you would find the floor literally covered in dead bodies.
I won't even get into the absurd conclusions that they draw from their measurements themselves, since this is HN, not a neuroscience forum, but suffice to say that any college freshman in an introductory neuroscience class should have known better. It's as if they copied and pasted the analysis from another study and inserted their own data into it - that's how nonsensical it is.
(The original study is linked from the retraction page; I'd emphasize again that the study itself had enough other flaws in it that it should never have been published in the first place, even if the drug mixup had never been discovered).
> With hundreds of reviews I'd hope a few people were smart enough to sacrifice some of their MDMA to test it.
I guess that it depends on how easy it is to test it. If it requires a chemistry degree and a lab I am guessing they won't test even if they are otherwise smart.
> which is to say it hasn't been found to work in a natural setting
Or rather it can't really be studied in natural (uncontrolled) setting, given that it's a heavily controlled substance. You just can't give it to people and let them run loose. You also can't just collect their opinions on experience with otherwise acquired MDMA, because it's cut, altered, often other substances or a mix of substances.
Also as a scientist you do not want to be seen as supporting self-medication with with illegal and dangerous (MDMA has low therapeutic index) substances.
> may be linked to the psychedelic’s ability to reopen a “critical period” in the brain for social reward learning. That's a lot more weasel words than the headline.
I see it more as a careful scientist wording, given that it's really hard to study psychedelic drugs.
> Conversations you have in ecstasy often are very profound.
Often repeated for all kinds of drugs, MDMA, psychedelics, even marijuana users claim this. But in my experience conversations are universally banal and only seem profound.
> you may open up in ways you would not normally
To me, this sounds like a nightmare. The idea that something artificial could change me in any way. And the idea that people desire this is scary.
> You feel understood
Exactly, you feel understood without being understood.
> You seem very judgemental.
For exercising my right to not do something while recognizing the right of others to do it? Oh, the irony.
Didn't the war on drugs didn't put a damper on this? Although they seem to be finding medical uses MDMA now. I just wonder how many things we could be benefiting from that have been shelved because of prohibition.
I use light therapy in the winter. It feels like it at least helps wake me up on those days when the midwest skies are nothing but grey. I don't know if there is any science behind it. I sit out side as much as I can the 3-6 months that it's decent out.
This isn’t a very good argument. Table salt is literally Sodium and Chlorine, both of which are extremely toxic to humans but that’s irrelevant to anyone who understands that molecules have different effects than other molecules that share part of the same name.
Again though, mdma can kill you even if it’s completely pure. This is especially true if you take MAOIs or drink not enough/too much water or take any other meds that mess with serotonin. Please research things carefully.
I only had a chance to skim that article, but it is equating tablets of ecstasy with MDMA, which is a false equivalence. "Ecstasy tablets" usually contain some MDMA, but can also contain a whole bunch of other shit, including cocaine, heroine, speed, MDA, etc. I think the jury's still out on whether pure MDMA has the same downsides from frequent use.
> However, what drives me crazy is how are we supposed to get the medicine?
It might be too soon to call this "medicine," a word with certain emotional associations. The article includes many interesting and intriguing anecdotes, but to date the described effects haven't been examined in a properly designed double-blind study (a study with two or more groups and no practical way for the subjects or experimenters to know which group is which[1]).
We must all remember that the placebo effect is particularly persuasive -- some would say confounding -- in the evaluation of mental states.
On the other hand, the so-called "war on drugs" has made it difficult to study these substances without legal entanglements, a factor that by itself may have held back legitimate research for decades.
That's the point. Ecstacy does not have a precise definition. MDMA does. Given this is a trial, it should be labeled what it is.
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