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MDMA for Medical Use by 2018?
Life is like Game of Thrones and winter is coming. During the months between September and April about seven percent of the UK population will admit to experiencing seasonal depression. About nine percent of the population deal with a chronic mix of anxiety and depression. We also have people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), In short, for some people, shit seems bleak.
So what’s to be done? Should we head to the GP and ask for a prescription for a vial of pills that suck away emotions and creativity?
There’s always self-medication, which one could argue is good business for your local pub or drug dealer. Although this route can lead to further depression. As millions of people will tell you, some things are easier said than done and things could always get worse.
So maybe it’s time to try a different approach. An approach that has left many doctors banished from their clinics and banned from practicing medicine for attempting something so radical and for the moment, illegal. Perhaps it’s time to start prescribing psychedelics?
As cool as it would be, we’re not talking about your GP handing out a bunch of MDMA along with guest list to every club in London. Nor are we talking about general advice including ‘go home, get some rest, drop a tab of acid and call me in the morning.’ Pipe dreams, unfortunately, for now.
However, clinical trials in both the UK and the US are having extremely positive results. For the moment the trials are done under medical supervision, free from the typical environment of a club or your friends flat. Sounds terrible, right? Sounds like those old videos from the 50’s where military recruits are subjected to large doses of drugs and ordered to march around a forest all day until they go insane and climb a tree.
No, it’s nothing like that, which is part of why the therapy is working. Free from the usual stimulation we usually get into during a drug experience, a lot of subjects are better able to look farther inside themselves for results.
During these trials the drugs varied from magic mushrooms to LSD, MDMA, and even ketamine. In the US, the Food and Drug Administration is set to approve MDMA for medical use by 2018, with others hopefully to follow. This is a good start, so let's see if we can get on the same path here in the UK and help those who most need it get drugs that may actually help them. And that probably includes all of us.
