Showing posts with label ecstasy trials. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ecstasy trials. Show all posts

Monday, January 20, 2020

"When you look at the hard numbers a research project on 20 veterans is not even yawn worthy."

MDMA did not work before but let's do it anyway?


Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
January 20, 2020

My emails have been piling up the last couple of days with this type of news.
Pioneering research in its third phase of trials with the FDA evaluates the safety and effectiveness of using MDMA—called molly or ecstasy—to treat post-traumatic stress disorders.
IT IS NOT NEW NEWS and there is a reason for that. It was done, redone and doggonit done again!

The first post on Wounded Times goes back to 2007 Tom Shoder of the Washington Post wanted to hear from readers about MDMA. He followed that up a few days later with Ecstasy Trials: Was it a fluke or the future?

In 2008, there was a "new look" at it, even though the subject of the article, MAPS President Rick Doblin had been aware of it since 1982.

On the post another report that went back to 2005 from The Guardian, also took a look at it. (That link is still active as of today.)

There were more from then to 2013 when I wrote that Euphoria over PTSD drugs needs to over and pointed out past studies along with this sentiment "When you look at the hard numbers a research project on 20 veterans is not even yawn worthy."

Well, full circle up to 2018 with another slam at this sham, there was another trial and this time they had a whopping 26 combat veterans! WOW, we were supposed to be impressed?
Reporters need to use all the extra time on their hands to actually start to do some basic research and folks passing this crapload forward need to go play a game of candy crush so they stop wasting everyone else's time!

UPDATE

FDA Expands Access to Ecstasy Drug for PTSD Therapy

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

MDMA, a psychedelic drug better known as ecstasy...again

Is there a researcher at the New York Times? If there is, please show reporters how to do it! It would really be more helpful to make sure that when things are done, and failed, they actually understand it did so for a reason!


First thing to notice, is the date of this article.
The Peace Drug
Washington Post
By Tom Shroder
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 25, 2007; Page W12

Post-traumatic stress disorder had destroyed Donna Kilgore's life. Then experimental therapy with MDMA, a psychedelic drug better known as ecstasy, showed her a way out. Was it a fluke -- or the future?

THE BED IS TILTING!

Or the couch, or whatever. A futon. Slanted.

She hadn't noticed it before, but now she can't stop noticing. Like the princess and the pea.

By objective measure, the tilt is negligible, a fraction of an inch, but she can't be fooled by appearances, not with the sleep mask on. In her inner darkness, the slight tilt magnifies, and suddenly she feels as if she might slide off, and that idea makes her giggle.

"I feel really, really weird," she says. "Crooked!"

Donna Kilgore laughs, a high-pitched sound that contains both thrill and anxiety. That she feels anything at all, anything other than the weighty, oppressive numbness that has filled her for 11 years, is enough in itself to make her giddy.

But there is something more at work inside her, something growing from the little white capsule she swallowed just minutes ago. She's subject No. 1 in a historic experiment, the first U.S. government-sanctioned research in two decades into the potential of psychedelic drugs to treat psychiatric disorders. This 2004 session in the office of a Charleston, S.C., psychiatrist is being recorded on audiocassettes, which Donna will later hand to a journalist.
read more here
Then consider all the years beyond that article on this drug, and all the years between then and now. What do we arrive at?

Almost the same article 11 years later on the New York Times!
Ecstasy as a Remedy for PTSD? You Probably Have Some Questions.
New York Times
By Dave Philipps
May 1, 2018

The drug known by the street names Ecstasy or Molly could be a promising treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a new study.

Research published Tuesday in the British journal The Lancet Psychiatry found that after two sessions of psychotherapy with the party drug, officially known as MDMA, a majority of 26 combat veterans and first-responders with chronic PTSD who had not been helped by traditional methods saw dramatic decreases in symptoms.

The improvements were so dramatic that 68 percent of the patients no longer met the clinical criteria for PTSD. Patients taking the drug also experienced “drastic” improvements in sleep and became more conscientious, according to the study.
read more here

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Euphoria over PTSD drugs needs to be over

Euphoria over PTSD drugs needs to be over
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
August 29, 2013

Euphoria is "a good ability to endure" but not heal. So why is it that medications seem to be the only answer?

More and more reports on research being done on medications but evidence has shown most have come with warnings to not use them when the patient has depression because suicidal thoughts could increase. Some researchers point to this and say another medication needs to replace "what is" and go for the alternatives of medical marijuana to ecstasy to treat PTSD. Basically the response from many psychiatrists has been if it feels good, take it.

The problem is that while medications for PTSD were supposed to be about getting the chemicals of the brain level so that therapy had a better chance to work, they have been used in replace of what is less expensive but takes more time, listening.

Recently CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta came out in favor of medical marijuana but the use of it is far from new. Many Vietnam veterans used it to relax and clam down. It was a lot better than alcohol for them because instead of passing out from booze, they simply fell asleep. Keep in mind that chemicals, legal or not, take effect in the brain and thus hit the whole body. "The high-profile doc, who is CNN's chief medical correspondent, apologized for "not looking hard enough" at the research on medicinal marijuana that suggests it can help treat conditions from chronic pain to post-traumatic stress disorder."

Ecstasy has also been in the news around the world. The push in the US has been going on for years and now it seems that Rick Doblin, Ph.D., Founder and Executive Director of Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies is trying to get Australia to get involved.

"Doblin wants Australia to replicate a successful trial in the United States in which 80 per cent of soldiers and emergency workers in a study were successfully treated for PTSD using MDMA, the main ingredient in ecstasy, and psychotherapy. The controversial but legal program involved 20 veterans, who had not responded to other treatments, taking MDMA twice during three months of psychotherapy."

Wow! A whole 20 people participated in the study and 80% of them were "successfully treated" by getting high. Not impressed considering that the National Institute of Mental Health says Approximately 7.7 million American adults age 18 and older, or about 3.5 percent of people in this age group in a given year, have PTSD. PTSD can develop at any age, including childhood, but research shows that the median age of onset is 23 years. About 19 percent of Vietnam veterans experienced PTSD at some point after the war.13 The disorder also frequently occurs after violent personal assaults such as rape, mugging, or domestic violence; terrorism; natural or human-caused disasters; and accidents.

Topped off with the fact the VA has 3.9 million veterans collecting disability compensation with hundreds of thousands receiving treatment for PTSD and another huge percentage of veterans with PTSD still not seeking treatment. The assumption has been that less than half of our veterans with PTSD seek help.

This isn't new. Back in 2004 NBC News had a report that 1 in 8 soldiers back from combat had PTSD but less than half sought treatment. The CBO released a report in 2012 with 103,000 OEF OIF veterans with PTSD, 8,700 with TBI and 26,600 with both.

When you look at the hard numbers a research project on 20 veterans is not even yawn worthy.

Most of the veterans seeking help have a need to feel better and they are ready to grab at anything that does it, no matter how long it lasts. They make irrational decisions clinging onto whatever works for "now" hoping it is what does the trick for the long haul only to discover it didn't last long enough. They replace that fix with something else, then something else but the end result is always the same. It wears off and most of the time they feel worse than they did before. Why? Because while they were trying to fill the void and numb the pain, PTSD had rested up enough to get stronger.

Drugs, legal or otherwise, are not the answer especially when there is time to reverse most of what PTSD does. Early on treatment with medication blended with talk therapy, physical therapy and spiritual intervention reverses most of what PTSD does but even a perfect blend of all of these treatments do not cure it.

If too much time goes by, life gets in the way of healing and more parts of the human are hit including the brain itself. Scans have shown changes in the brain hit by PTSD. It hits the nervous system, heart, digestive organs and on and on. Even chronic cases of PTSD veterans can live better lives by combining treatments, so it is not hopeless but when we pretend that drugs are the answer the reality is, they are part of the problem when they are the only game in town.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Study Looks at How Ecstasy Can Possibly Treat PTSD

Study Looks at How Ecstasy Can Possibly Treat PTSD
WDTV News
Written by Whitney Wetzel
Last updated on April 23, 2013

"Well, it's not as crazy as it sounds, but I don't look forward to it happening within the next day or two," said Dr. Bob Williams, Executive Director of the United Summit Center.

A small study is looking at how the illegal drug ecstasy can help treat those who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD is an anxiety disorder that some people get after seeing or living through a traumatic event. It most commonly affects military veterans, survivors of physical or sexual abuse, and accident victims.

"Some people struggle through it. Some people struggle for a long time. Then, some people, it really gets to the point where they can really become dysfunctional. The fear and the anxiety can overcome them and change their life," Dr. Williams explained.
read more here

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Experimental treatment for PTSD: Ecstasy

Experimental treatment for PTSD: Ecstasy
By Caleb Hellerman
CNN
December 1, 2012

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Rachel Hope suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder for years
In 2005, she investigated an experimental new treatment: Ecstasy
Dr. Michael Mithoefer convinced the DEA to green-light a study of the treatment
More than 7 million Americans suffer from PTSD

Editor's note: This is the first installment of a three-day series on the controversial use of the drug Ecstasy to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. On Sunday, read more about Rachel Hope's story and the history of MDMA, also known as Ecstasy. And don't miss "Sanjay Gupta MD" at 4:30 p.m. ET Saturday and 7:30 a.m. ET Sunday.


(CNN) -- Rachel Hope was 33 years old when she received a painful reminder: She couldn't outrun the past.

Hope was trying to help a new assistant at her Maui rental property business, but it wasn't going smoothly. Part of it was Hope herself.

"I had this startle reflex," she explained. "The phone would ring, and I'm literally three feet off the floor, screaming.

"My new assistant said, 'You're driving me crazy!' And I would say, 'I'm really sorry, just please try to ignore it. It's embarrassing, but let's keep working.' "

But the young man, a teacher on break, wasn't pushed off easily. Soon after, Hope said, "he walked over to my desk and dropped a stack of papers two inches thick. It was every single PTSD study that was online, and he just said, 'pick one.' "
read more here



Australian veterans talk about benefits of Ecstasy

While there are many more reports on this blog about using Ecstasy to help with PTSD, the research goes back to 2007. Here are a few of them.

Israel tests Ecstasy on war trauma victims April 26, 2008

A New Look At Ecstasy To Treat PTSD February 11, 2008

Ecstasy Trials Was it a fluke -- or the future? November, 22, 2007

Friday, November 30, 2012

Australian veterans talk about benefits of Ecstasy

NOT since Edina Monsoon's personal health crises on Absolutely Fabulous have we been so concerned with our wellbeing.
Matt Young
news.com.au
November 30, 2012
Herald Sun

Health, health, health, darling. Right, Eddie?

But thanks to the smart cookies at research departments across the globe, we’ve learnt a thing or two about the science behind the medicine.

Like the fact that mixing grapefruit with medication can lead to gastrointestinal bleeding, acute kidney failure, or sudden death. For example.

Or that there is evidence to suggest that ecstacy is a feasible treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

So much so that retired Australian war vet major Steve McDonald is urging the Government to legalise the drug for treatment purposes in affected veterans.

"I think it's really important because the psychedelic medicines are showing really strong potential, and it's a new area of medicine that's unlocking different ways to heal people," said Maj McDonald.

News.com.au heard from a host of sufferers of PTSD, most who concurred with the findings.

"Having also been diagnosed with PTSD due to military deployments I have and am using all kinds of different prescriptions but am still living with depression, night terrors and nightmares and can’t be alone at night due to psychosis as well," wrote Albert in Sydney.

"I'd be quite happy to try something new to free me from my own prison."

Some went so far to say that it was the illicit drug that kept them alive.

"I totally agree with this, as I suffered from PTSD and I can state with 10000% accuracy that if it wasn't for ecstasy, I probably wouldn't be here today," one reader posted anonymously.
read more here

Saturday, September 22, 2012

UK PTSD study uses Ecstasy to get veterans talking

There is one thing all experts agree on when it comes to healing PTSD. Talking helps them heal. The UK is trying to do that with Ecstasy.

The agony and the ecstasy
S.A.S. man in TV drug test on war trauma
By LEIGH HOLMWOOD
Published: 12 hrs ago

AN SAS hero will be seen taking ECSTASY on a controversial Channel 4 show.

Phil Campion, who served in the corps’ D Squadron, agreed to take part in Drugs Live to help research into whether the Class A dance drug has an effect on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) suffered by troops.

The dad-of-five — now a mercenary “pirate hunter” — will be seen alongside comedian Keith Allen and former Lib Dem MP Evan Harris taking an 83mg dose of pharmaceutical-grade MDMA, the pure form of ecstasy.

They will then undergo a brain scan to see what effect it has.
“The experts seem to think MDMA may help people with PTSD, letting them open up so they can talk about stuff they’ve never been able to talk about. Experiments like this had never been done before and if you want to test for ex-soldiers’ reactions to the drug, who better to use than an ex-SAS bloke like me?”
read more here

Friday, November 14, 2008

Ecstasy may help PTSD

You need to see this video, especially if you are under the delusion scientist are not sure about PTSD. It is real. They have the test and research to prove it!

Ecstasy may help PTSD 2:02
CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports on research showing ecstasy might help those suffering from PTSD.


For more on this on this blog

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Tom Shroder wants questions from you on ecstasy trials for PTSD

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Ecstasy Trials Was it a fluke -- or the future?

Monday, February 11, 2008

A New Look At Ecstasy To Treat PTSD

Monday, February 18, 2008

Breaking the Drug Taboo:PTSD Veterans Get Ecstasy Treatment

Monday, April 7, 2008

UK:Welsh soldier dies from Ecstasy use

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Australia tackles Ecstasy treatment for PTSD

Monday, June 23, 2008

Ecstasy for PTSD in Australia battle for minds

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Drug trials:Had a nice trip. Wish you could, too.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

From Marijuana to Ecstasy, Scientists Fight to Study Illicit Drugs

But, this study is not new. This is from my other blog


Ecstasy trials for combat stress
David Adam,
science correspondent
Thursday February 17, 2005
The Guardian
American soldiers traumatised by fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are to be offered the drug ecstasy to help free them of flashbacks and recurring nightmares.

The US food and drug administration has given the go-ahead for the soldiers to be included in an experiment to see if MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy, can treat post-traumatic stress disorder.

Scientists behind the trial in South Carolina think the feelings of emotional closeness reported by those taking the drug could help the soldiers talk about their experiences to therapists. Several victims of rape and sexual abuse with post-traumatic stress disorder, for whom existing treatments are ineffective, have been given MDMA since the research began last year.............................
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1416073,00.html



TWO QUESTIONS ON THIS LITTLE KNOWN REPORT. ARE THEY STILL DOING THIS? ARE THE TROOPS BEING SENT BACK TO IRAQ TAKING IT? WE KNOW THEY ARE SENDING TROOPS DIAGNONSED WITH PTSD BACK TO IRAQ ON MEDS. IS THIS ONE OF THEM? COULD THIS BE THE CAUSE OF SOME OF THEM GOING OVER THE EDGE?
http://namguardianangel.blogspot.com/search?q=ecstacy+trails

Thursday, September 11, 2008

From Marijuana to Ecstasy, Scientists Fight to Study Illicit Drugs

Hurdles Keep Street Drugs Out of Medicine Chest
From Marijuana to Ecstasy, Scientists Fight to Study Illicit Drugs' Medical Properties
By RUSSELL GOLDMAN
Sept. 11, 2008

The patients at Dr. Michael Mithoefer's clinic in South Carolina all suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Some are the victims of rape and child sexual abuse, others -- veterans returning home from Iraq -- bear the psychic scars of war.

They have tried other therapies before but here, under the watchful eye of Mithoefer and his staff, they're trying something new -- MDMA, better known as ecstasy, a drug that if bought on a street corner would land these patients in jail.

The results of the Mithoefer study -- the first Food and Drug Administration-approved Phase 2 trial of MDMA to treat post-traumatic stress -- will not be known until it concludes later this month. But the treatment already shows promise, the doctor says.


"We have had some very dramatic results," Mithoefer said. "We have examples of people on disability for years who have now returned to work. The treatment has had a profound effect on a number of people whose symptoms are now much better. It hasn't been that way for everybody but, overall, this seems to be much more effective than what is currently out there."
click post title for more

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Drug trials:Had a nice trip. Wish you could, too.

Had a nice trip. Wish you could, too.

By Billy Cox


Published: Thursday, August 14, 2008 at 1:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, August 14, 2008 at 12:51 a.m.
SARASOTA - Unlike graying peers who refuse to acknowledge youthful drug use, Rick Doblin celebrates his. He will tell crowds of strangers about the dizzy days of tripping on acid and getting arrested for swimming naked at his alma mater, New College, in the 1970s.

He 'fesses up to dropping out his freshman year in pursuit of truth through psychedelics. He will tell them that the cedar-and-granite Sarasota home he built three decades ago -- described by Rolling Stone magazine as a "Frank Lloyd Wright on acid design" -- was conceived to enhance the experience. He endorses the aboriginal bonding traditions of parents sharing psychedelic drugs with their children.

To be sure, at 55, the controversial drug reform activist has graduated into the sobering realities of middle age. But with the first wave of baby boomers edging closer to the shadow of America's average lifespan of 78 years, Doblin is racing the clock to drag a great taboo out of the closet and into the light of mainstream science.

Working within the system, in a shift that would have been unthinkable during the Just Say No era 20 years ago, Doblin and the benefactors to his nonprofit initiative have persuaded the Food and Drug Administration to revoke its ban on testing psychotropic agents for medicinal purposes.

Today, no less than four clinical studies involving Ecstasy, or MDMA, and psilocybin, the mindbending ingredient of "magic mushrooms," are being monitored by the FDA. Among their potential remedies: helping war veterans cope with post-traumatic stress disorder and easing end-of-life anxieties for the terminally ill.
click post title for more

Monday, June 23, 2008

Ecstasy for PTSD in Australia battle for minds

Pro drug trial
Ecstasy to relieve war stress

THE drug ecstasy could be used by war veterans to alleviate stress, says an Australian Democrats MP.

South Australian Democrat Sandra Kanck says the drug's key ingredient, methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), could be used to alleviate post-traumatic stress disorders.

"This is not a new idea, it is being trialled in the United States and Israel for war veterans and in Spain for rape victims," she said in a statement.

"It's not a frivolous idea.

"Studies by the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2003 and 2007 have shown that post-traumatic stress is a real issue for veterans of the Gulf and Vietnam wars.

"Veterans, like other Australians, are already being prescribed powerful drugs like highly addictive morphine for pain relief and benzodiazepines for post traumatic stress disorder - both are potentially addictive and dangerous drugs.

"Most drugs can be dangerous but if they are used in a controlled way they can be medically beneficial."
go here for more of this
http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,23907284-921,00.html


The really interesting part of this, is that two different Australian papers reported the same story with two totally different headlines but basically the same reporting done. A clear indication there is bias in both papers. So what's behind this? Is it what's in the best interest of the PTSD wounded Australian solders or what's in the best interest of the reporter's views?



Con drug trial
RSL rejects calls to use ecstasy on stressed war veterans
Steve Larkin
June 23, 2008 03:25pm

PROPOSALS to use the drug ecstasy on war veterans to alleviate stress have drawn a lukewarm response from the Returned Services League.

RSL national president Bill Crews said he was reluctant to support a call from an Australian Democrats MP to investigate using the drug on war veterans.
Major General Crews said the proposal was problematic.

"When you are talking about ingredients of illegal drugs in the process of mental health treatment, you are starting to raise quite some issues. Even if it was proven to be beneficial in some areas, how do you actually control it?" he said.

"It's a matter that would be best examined by those qualified to make a decision about its validity or otherwise.

"And until I heard the advice of those specialists and the reasons for that advice, certainly I would be somewhat reluctant to support it.

"We would not agree with a proposal until such time as it was thoroughly investigated scientifically and the specialists in this field, particularly psychiatrists, were confident that there was a case."
go here for more of this
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23908072-953,00.html

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Australia tackles Ecstasy treatment for PTSD

Australia:

20, 2008 07:30pm
DEMOCRAT Sandra Kanck has accused Veterans' Affairs Minister Michael Atkinson of being "hysterical" and "cynical" in attacking her call for an investigation into the use of ecstasy for war veterans.

Ms Kanck yesterday questioned in parliament whether the government would consider a trial of MDMA - also known as ecstasy - for soldiers.

She said trials of MDMA on soldiers with post-traumatic stress syndrome in the U.S. and Israel had shown "excellent results."

But Mr Atkinson said the Government would "not be supporting Sandra Kanck's latest rave" and "Vietnam Veterans are not laboratory mice for a left-wing social experiment."

Ms Kanck said if Mr Atkinson "really cared about veterans," he would look into any proposal that might help them and their families.

"He is either too superstitious to consider the science and the evidence or he is playing cynical politics," she said.

"'Veterans, like other Australians, are already being prescribed powerful drugs like highly addictive morphine for pain relief and benzodiazepines for post traumatic stress disorder. Both are potentially addictive and dangerous drugs."
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,23896389-5006301,00.html

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Another look at Ecstasy in treatment of PTSD

May 4, 2008

Ecstasy is the key to treating PTSD
At last the incurably traumatised may be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. And controversially, the key to taming their demons is the ‘killer’ drug Ecstasy
Amy Turner

An Ecstasy tablet. That’s what it took to make Donna Kilgore feel alive again – that and the doctor who prescribed it. As the pill began to take effect, she giggled for the first time in ages. She felt warm and fuzzy, as if she was floating. The anxiety melted away. Gradually, it all became clear: the guilt, the anger, the shame.

Before, she’d been frozen, unable to feel anything but fear for 10 years. Touching her own arms was, she says, “like touching a corpse”. She was terrified, unable to respond to her loving husband or rock her baby to sleep. She couldn’t drive over bridges for fear of dying, was by turns uncontrollably angry and paralysed with numbness. When she spoke, she heard her voice as if it were miles away; her head felt detached from her body. “It was like living in a movie but watching myself through the camera lens,” she says. “I wasn’t real.”

Unknowingly, Donna, now 39, had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). And she would become the first subject in a pioneering American research programme to test the effects of MDMA – otherwise known as the dancefloor drug Ecstasy – on PTSD sufferers.

Some doctors believe MDMA could be the key to solving previously untreatable deep-rooted traumas. For a hard core of PTSD cases, no amount of antidepressants or psychotherapy can rid them of the horror of systematic abuse or a bad near-death experience, and the slightest reminder triggers vivid flashbacks.

PTSD-specific psychotherapy has always been based on the idea that the sufferer must be guided back to the pivotal moment of that trauma – the crash, the battlefield, the moment of rape – and relive it before they can move on and begin to heal. But what if that trauma is insurmountable? What if a person is so horrified by their experience that even to think of revisiting it can bring on hysterics? After hysterics, the Home Office estimates that 11,000 clubbers take Ecstasy every weekend. Could MDMA – the illegal class-A rave drug, found in the system of Leah Betts when she died in 1995, and over 200 others since – really help? Dr Michael Mithoefer, the psychiatrist from South Carolina who struggled for years to get funding and permission for the study, believes so. Some regard his study – approved by the US government – as irresponsible, dangerous even. But Mithoefer’s results tell a different story.

go here for more
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article3850302.ece

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Israel 34 days at war and 500 PTSD reserve soldiers

Israel tests Ecstasy on war trauma victims

An Israeli medical team has started tests using the drug Ecstasy as a treatment for conflict-linked post-traumatic disorders, the Maariv daily reported on Friday.

Doctors at the Beer-Yakov psychiatric hospital south of Tel Aviv are testing the response of Israeli post-traumatic disorder patients to MDMA, the active ingredient in the drug.

Rakefet Rodriguez, Sergio Marchiveski and Marina Kaufchicz, who are leading the experimental programme, are convinced that psychotheraphy is crucial in curing patients and that Ecstasy can help them to recover.

The doctors believe the drug has both calming and stimulating effects that can help patients not only overcome trauma but also dominate it, Maariv said.

Almost 500 reserve troops suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder following the 34-day war that pitted Israeli troops against Lebanon’s Hezbollah Shiite militia in July and August 2006, the paper said.

Ecstasy, which is illegal in most countries, is one of the world’s most commonly used narcotics.
http://inplacenews.wordpress.com/2008/04/26/israel-tests-ecstasy-on-war-trauma-victims/


Before you start on anything about Israel and Lebanon, don't. This is about the fact they had a 34 day battle going on and it produced 500 PTSD cases. Think about that!

The next thing is that with their track record of upheaval and suicide bombings, along with Lebanon and what they are going through, we have a lot to learn from them. It's time we all looked at what other nations are doing since all that is required is a human is exposed to traumatic events and there are humans all over the world.

Monday, April 7, 2008

UK:Welsh soldier dies from Ecstasy use

Pal’s drug warning after soldier dies
Apr 6 2008 by Staff Reporter, Wales On Sunday

A SOLDIER who had apparently taken Ecstasy died after going AWOL from a Welsh army base at the centre of two drugs scandals.

Rifleman Sam Watterson, 19, failed to return to Beachley Barracks in Chepstow, Monmouthshire, after he had gone home and was said to be unhappy with Army life.

He died at a friend’s house after it is believed he had taken the Class A drug Ecstasy.

Close friends last night spoke of a “fun-loving, really genuine person” who had never been happy in the Army.

But they insisted Mr Watterson was not a regular drug user.

click post title for more

While Ecstasy is being looked at as a treatment for PTSD, it is unwise to use this drug as part of your own self-medication. I support the trials but I do not support using this because you are unhappy. This soldier was unhappy with Army life. It ended his life.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Breaking the Drug Taboo:PTSD Veterans Get Ecstasy Treatment

Breaking the Drug Taboo: Group of Traumatized Veterans Get Ecstasy Treatment
February 11, 2008 - AlterNet




By Scott Thill

An experimental study that treats PTSD veterans with the drug MDMA could make life after war a lot more livable.

"We need to be positioning ourselves now to provide the assistance that our veterans need," said House Committee on Veterans' Affairs chairman Bob Filner (D-CA) during a hearing, called "Stopping Suicides: Examining the Mental Health Challenges Facing the Department of Veterans Affairs," held in December 2007. "Not only for those brave men and women who are returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan, but also for our veterans from previous conflicts. We cannot afford to put this issue off."

Filner's choice of words is instructive, as are his sentiments: With upwards of 25 million veterans in the United States, not counting those overseas in the morally murky theater of Iraq and Afghanistan who may return home sometime after the 2008 presidential election, that's a lot of assistance and funding needed to head off what he called a "rate of veteran suicide [that] has reached epidemic proportions," to the point that it has doubled the suicide rate of civilians. Safeguards already put into place have failed, for a variety of reasons, and given the severity of the mental and physical problems carried by returning soldiers, some daring out-of-the-box thinking is not only desperately needed, but required.

Enter the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), and its currently funded trials using 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methamphetamine -- otherwise known as MDMA, or ecstasy -- to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although the U.S. Army had carried out lethal dose studies of MDMA back in the 1950s, work which was not classified until the close of the 1960s, it was only centered on animals and was mixed in with a variety of other compounds.

At the closure of that research, MDMA languished in clinical obscurity until its rise as a club drug in the '80s and '90s brought it the kind of attention that dooms better drugs to Schedule I classifications -- that is, illegality -- and lesser drugs to approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). But MAPS founder and president Rick Doblin became aware of MDMA in 1982, and since then has been convinced of its therapeutic uses. Accordingly, his organization has coordinated and/or funded recent studies into MDMA treatment of PTSD and has its eyes set on a higher goal.
go here for the rest
http://www.entheology.org/edoto/anmviewer.asp?a=266

Monday, February 11, 2008

A New Look At Ecstasy To Treat PTSD

Breaking the Drug Taboo: Group of Traumatized Veterans Get Experimental Ecstasy Treatment

By Scott Thill, AlterNet. Posted February 11, 2008.


An experimental study that treats PTSD veterans with the drug MDMA could make life after war a lot more livable.

"We need to be positioning ourselves now to provide the assistance that our veterans need," said House Committee on Veterans' Affairs chairman Bob Filner (D-CA) during a hearing, called "Stopping Suicides: Examining the Mental Health Challenges Facing the Department of Veterans Affairs," held in December 2007. "Not only for those brave men and women who are returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan, but also for our veterans from previous conflicts. We cannot afford to put this issue off."

Filner's choice of words is instructive, as are his sentiments: With upwards of 25 million veterans in the United States, not counting those overseas in the morally murky theater of Iraq and Afghanistan who may return home sometime after the 2008 presidential election, that's a lot of assistance and funding needed to head off what he called a "rate of veteran suicide [that] has reached epidemic proportions," to the point that it has doubled the suicide rate of civilians. Safeguards already put into place have failed, for a variety of reasons, and given the severity of the mental and physical problems carried by returning soldiers, some daring out-of-the-box thinking is not only desperately needed, but required.

Enter the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), and its currently funded trials using 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methamphetamine -- otherwise known as MDMA, or ecstasy -- to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although the U.S. Army had carried out lethal dose studies of MDMA back in the 1950s, work which was not classified until the close of the 1960s, it was only centered on animals and was mixed in with a variety of other compounds. At the closure of that research, MDMA languished in clinical obscurity until its rise as a club drug in the '80s and '90s brought it the kind of attention that dooms better drugs to Schedule I classifications -- that is, illegality -- and lesser drugs to approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). But MAPS founder and president Rick Doblin became aware of MDMA in 1982, and since then has been convinced of its therapeutic uses. Accordingly, his organization has coordinated and/or funded recent studies into MDMA treatment of PTSD and has its eyes set on a higher goal.

"We're looking to make MDMA into a prescription medication in the United States, United Kingdom and elsewhere," he explained by phone.
go here for the rest
http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/76576/



This report came out in 2005
Ecstasy trials for combat stress
David Adam,science correspondent
Thursday February 17, 2005
The GuardianAmerican soldiers traumatised by fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are to be offered the drug ecstasy to help free them of flashbacks and recurring nightmares.The US food and drug administration has given the go-ahead for the soldiers to be included in an experiment to see if MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy, can treat post-traumatic stress disorder.Scientists behind the trial in South Carolina think the feelings of emotional closeness reported by those taking the drug could help the soldiers talk about their experiences to therapists. Several victims of rape and sexual abuse with post-traumatic stress disorder, for whom existing treatments are ineffective, have been given MDMA since the research began last year.............................
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1416073,00.html

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Ecstasy Trials Was it a fluke -- or the future?

The Peace Drug
Post-traumatic stress disorder had destroyed Donna Kilgore's life. Then experimental therapy with MDMA, a psychedelic drug better known as ecstasy, showed her a way out. Was it a fluke -- or the future?

By Tom Shroder
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 25, 2007; Page W12

THE BED IS TILTING!

Or the couch, or whatever. A futon. Slanted.

She hadn't noticed it before, but now she can't stop noticing. Like the princess and the pea.

By objective measure, the tilt is negligible, a fraction of an inch, but she can't be fooled by appearances, not with the sleep mask on. In her inner darkness, the slight tilt magnifies, and suddenly she feels as if she might slide off, and that idea makes her giggle.

"I feel really, really weird," she says. "Crooked!"

Donna Kilgore laughs, a high-pitched sound that contains both thrill and anxiety. That she feels anything at all, anything other than the weighty, oppressive numbness that has filled her for 11 years, is enough in itself to make her giddy.

But there is something more at work inside her, something growing from the little white capsule she swallowed just minutes ago. She's subject No. 1 in a historic experiment, the first U.S. government-sanctioned research in two decades into the potential of psychedelic drugs to treat psychiatric disorders. This 2004 session in the office of a Charleston, S.C., psychiatrist is being recorded on audiocassettes, which Donna will later hand to a journalist.

The tape reveals her reaction as she listens to the gentle piano music playing in her headphones. Behind her eyelids, movies begin to unreel. She tries to say what she sees: Cars careening down the wrong side of the road. Vivid images of her oldest daughter, then all three of her children. She's overcome with an all-consuming love, a love she thought she'd lost forever.

"Now I feel all warm and fuzzy," she announces. "I'm not nervous anymore."

"What level of distress do you feel right now?" a deeply mellow voice beside her asks.

Donna answers with a giggle. "I don't think I got the placebo," she says.

click post title for the rest

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Tom Shroder wants questions from you on ecstasy trials for PTSD


Tom Shroder
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 26, 2007; 12:00 PM
After decades of wariness about hallucinogenic drugs, researchers are now measuring the therapeutic effects of MDMA, or ecstasy, in a federal clinical study. In this week's issue of Washington Post Magazine, Tom Shroder explores the drug's scientific potential in treating post-traumatic stress disorder.
Submit your questions and comments before or during today's discussion.
Tom Shroder is the editor of the Magazine . He can be reached at shrodert@washpost.com.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/11/21/DI2007112101072.html



A while ago, I can't remember which blog it was on, I posted a story of a woman who had been brutally raped. They tried everything to ease her PTSD but nothing worked. They tried ecstasy. It helped her a great deal. Don't laugh at this study. There are many drugs being used today that were forbidden many years ago and some regarded as illegal now were used then, like marijuana. A lot of people are being helped using pot. Ask Willy Nelson.