US Soldiers given MDMA [E] to treat PTSD. What?

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2005/02/18/2003223545

I don't really know what to make of this. On one hand, if it works, fine. But on the other, this is morally wrong on many levels, and it seems like it's just replacing one problem with another.

I'm all for legalizing marijuana, but not narcotics, and definetly not for something like PTSD. Maybe at the end, for terminal cancer patients [as seen in the last paragraph], but not for 20 year old Iraq veterans.

THE GUARDIAN , LONDON
Friday, Feb 18, 2005,Page 7
US soldiers traumatized 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.

Michael Mithoefer, the psychiatrist leading the trial, said: "It's looking very promising. It's too early to draw any conclusions but in these treatment-resistant people so far the results are encouraging."

"People are able to connect more deeply on an emotional level with the fact they are safe now."

He is about to advertise for war veterans who fought in the last five years to join the study.

According to the US national center for post-traumatic stress disorder, up to 30 percent of combat veterans suffer from the condition at some point in their lives.

Known as shell shock during the first world war and combat fatigue in the second, the condition is characterized by intrusive memories, panic attacks and the avoidance of situations which might force sufferers to relive their wartime experiences.

Mithoefer said the MDMA helped people discuss traumatic situations without triggering anxiety.

"It appears to act as a catalyst to help people move through whatever's been blocking their success in therapy."

The existing drug-assisted therapy sessions last up to eight hours, during music is played.

The patients swallow a capsule containing a placebo or 125mg of MDMA -- about the same or a little more than a typical ecstasy tablet.

Psychologists assess the patients before and after the trial to judge whether the drug has helped.

The study has provoked controversy, because significant doubts remain about the long-term risks of ecstasy.

Animal studies suggest that it lowers levels of the brain chemical serotonin, and some politicians and anti-drug campaigners have argued that research into possible medical benefits of illegal drugs presents a falsely reassuring message.

The South Carolina study marks a resurgence of interest in the use of controlled psychedelic and hallucinogenic drugs.

Several studies in the US are planned or are under way to investigate whether MDMA, LSD and psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, can treat conditions ranging from obsessive compulsive disorder to anxiety in terminal cancer patients.

 

"Now listen Jimmy, here's the deal. We understand that you have had a horrific experience which has scarred you for life and we want to help you get through it. Therefor, we have decided to give you a highly addictive and extremely dangerous drug."


You have got to be kidding. What braintrust came up with that idea? Not only is it an illegal substance, but that stuff ravages the body and the brain. This hardly seems like it would help our troops even if it did "help the soldiers talk about their experiences to therapists".

 

Not only is it an illegal substance, but that stuff ravages the body and the brain.

"Ravages" is a little strong...

In large doses, yes, it definitely causes problems. Overdoses can cause problems with the bodies ability to maintain its temperature, and even normal doses can cause muscle tension, nausea, sweating or chills, etc. In the long term, there is evidence linking it to reduced serotonin production. So, there are definitely potential side effects. But for that matter, in large doses, aspirin causes problems. Or to use a closer analogy, morphine definitely has its share of problems, but has long been used as a painkiller. Why? Because with small and controlled doses the negative effects can be minimized, and in some cases the drugs solve more problems than they create. To use another analogy, chemotherapy drugs are essentially poisons, and definitely cause long-term damage. But the goal there, to eliminate cancer, outweighs the certain damage that the drugs do.

So, I have no problem at all with controlled testing of E for use for those suffering from mental trauma, provided that due care is taken.

 

Perhaps I did use to strong a phrase. Blame the writer in me. Then again, perhaps not. A quick google search on the effects of the stuff hardly makes me want to go and test it on a bunch of shell shocked troops.


http://www.oxyabusekills.com/Ecstasy.html

"The use of Ecstasy has been linked with a wide range of abnormalities such as impaired memory, chronic depression, anxiety, panic attacks, sleeplessness, "de-personalization", "de-realization", reduced cognitive ability, flashbacks, hallucinations, and paranoid delusions. Persons taking large quantities of Ecstasy in a binge pattern of use were thus at risk. Heavy users might develop depression and anxiety in the future. A user becomes a veritable neurological time-bomb."

Now, when I look at this list of effects there are a few that aren't so severe. But most of them seem pretty major to be labled as "side effects" and pushed aside. Hell, shell shocked troops would are very likely to already have things like hallucinations, flashbacks and panic attacks. Why experiment on them with something that could build upon the problems that they already have?

As for your chemotherapy analogy, I can see where you are coming from, but I don't agree. Yes, chemotherapy is essentially poisioning the body. The difference lies in the fact that chemo is an (admittedly dangerous) scientific procedure, while Ecstasy is an ilegal narcotic which is banned due to the high number of deaths from its use.

When it comes down to it using a powerful drug such as Ecstasy seems like it will do more harm than good.

 

You need to dig deeper when you read things like "ecstacy has been linked to x, y, z..."

As things stand there has not been a great deal of hard scientific study into ecstacy use, so most of what you read is speculative. Whether that speculation is informed often depends on where you read it - is it unbiased or is there an anti-drug agenda being promoted? It may be true, it may not but the jury is very much out on exactly what ecstacy use will do to humans long term, and what potential damage is linked to consuming different quantities.

It is also quite hard to fatally overdose on MDMA itself - the problems that result tend to arise from the inhibition of the body's normal homeostatic feedback processes, your body stops telling you when you are too hot, how much water you need etc. That is why clubbers are told to sip water in small amounts but fairly frequently while they are dancing - they need to consciously replace lost fluid because they can't rely on their body 'knowing' when and how much to drink. Ecstacy deaths are almost invariably related to this aspect of the drug - often sadly due to misinformation, people thinking that drinking lots of water will help, when effectively they are drowning themselves.

It is also worth noting that ecstacy is not physiclly addictive, and the death toll related to its use is extremely small. In the UK any e related death becomes headline news - but we don't get them that often. This is in spite of the fact that every weekend some 300,000 clubbers are taking on average 3-4 pills each. Of those million or so pills consumed every weekend, there may be about 12 deaths over the course of a year, generally avoidable deaths for the reasons given above.

There are a lot of other activities people can indulge in quite legally with a far higher death rate - so I think it is misleading to focus on e as a 'killer' pastime if you don't have a problem with - say - the number of fatalities you will see in the Alps during this year's ski season. The focus should be on the potential long term effects - and as I said above, this is still being investigated as the results are currently inconclusive.

There is a tendency for people to think that drugs fall into neat categories and can be labelled either good or bad. This is clearly absurd - drugs are just drugs, the difference tends to be why you are using them and how damaging they are to humans. Cocaine has been used as an anaesthetic in the past, but it was gradually decided by the medical community that the risk of addiction outweighed the benefits. Valium is a widely used drug- but for many their use of it has no real medical purpose. Here the 'abusers' tend not to be young but are often older and 'respectable', their use is not obviously recreational (no matter how medically unnecessary) so it is a 'problem' that tends to be politely ignored.

This is a long and roundabout way of saying that e should be given a chance - this is not the first time its medical use has been considered. It has even been mooted in the past as a useful tool for marriage guidance, it promotes empathy and can help couples to open up to each other.

I think it should be thoroughly tested - at the very least a proper medical trial would tell us far more about it, and people could at last base their decisions on whether to take it or not on facts rather than on half truths, rumours and scare stories.

 

Shroom said everything more eloquently than I ever could. Even mild antibiotics have a list of "possible side effects" a mile long - but it doesn't mean everyone that takes the drug is going to get one or more of them.

Also, MDMA has been used in trials for treatment of Parkinson's Disease (dyskinesias). Even though long term use is probably doing more harm than good, scientists should be studying why it is effective and if it can be replicated without the harmful effects.

 

Just a quick note on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: PTSD causes actual changes to the brain, and isn't just a psychological problem.

Simply talking about a traumatic experience that caused the disorder typically isn't enough.

 

I'm glad that MDMA might actually be getting used for the original purpose for which it was created.

The majority of these propangda websites either make studies up, or artistically interpret the results of genuine studies.

(ie one propaganda site claims that MDMA causes brain damage, and links to a study where they injected human doses of MDMA into rats . If you inject a human dose of anything into a rat you are doing to do it damage.)

Try reading this :-

Ecstasy: pharmacology and neurotoxicity, Jenny Morton, Current Opinion in Pharmacology, Volume 5, Issue 1 , February 2005, Pages 79-86

It covers the point Sil makes above (MDMA as treatment for dyskinesia in Parkinson's disease), but more importantly details the lack of negative effects that recreational (or therapeutic) doses have.

Furthermore it also details an often referenced study which was subsequentally recalled because it was found that they gave the test monkeys the wrong drug. Sadly, certain propaganda sites often refer to this study as 'proof', while ignoring it's recall.

 

This kills me. Our government will give E to soldiers, as an experimental treatment for PTSD, but won't listen to credible arguments about medical marijuana.

 

If you get really bored one day PM me, and I'll explain how the regular use of anti-histamines has almost identical side effects to the regular use of cannabis.

It tends to hush the anti-drug-squad up.

 

Well, on the morbidly bright side, if the MDMA [E] damages the soldiers' brains badly enough, they wouldn't get called back to duty.

Supplying ecstasy to soldiers to start talking to their shrink is a poor subsitute for a working patient doctor relationship, putting it mildly.

 

Screwing with neurotransmitters...that can't be good. Especially in the long term. What happens when the nightmares come back?

 

I was a Hospital Corpsman in the US Navy for 4 years, and I have NEVER heard of such a thing happening.

Correct me if I'm wrong V03, but I do believe that the drug was originally used on an experimental basis to treat depression.

However, it is NOT approved by the FDA for any general use at all today.

A study may have taken place, but I seriously doubt the US Military is going to allow prescriptions of such. Ever.

I'm highly skeptical of that report.

 

There's a similar study underway to see if MDMA can be used to help victims of rape recover from PTSD. Both studies are being done by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. I'm in favor of this research. If MDMA can help cure PTSD, then professional therapists should have the ability to administer it to their patients.

 

This really isn't anything new. I'm not a chemist, but from what i understand E is similar to ssri's which are one of the usual treatments for pstd.

Just a quick note, PSTD has a diagnostic criteria of the person having symptoms for 6 months.

Therapist probably shouldn't be allowed to prescribe drugs. Only therapist who are MD's should be doing that.

 

Yeah, a psychiatrist has do the actual prescribing. Talk therapists and MDs usualy work as teams, though I've read that some therapists are trying to get the laws changed so that they can prescribe drugs themselves. I don't think that's a good idea.

 

A much stranger treatment possibility is the use of the psychedelic drug ibogaine to treat heroin addiction. Weird.

 

Here's the problem with the ibogaine thing--it trips your ass for a very long period of time and it's rarer than hell. At any rate, it may be interesting.

As for the MDMA, well, people who weren't blinded by the propoganda--well-respected therapists and doctors--have long considered it a therapeutic drug. This is exactly what they did with it before they decided it should be illegal. Same thing with LSD, they were working with it in government labs and only finally decided it should be illegal when elements of the "counterculture" latched onto it.

"Isn't this stuff great? We're learning so much, it's so amazing, and it's safe."
"The hippies love it too."
"Those commie bastards? NEVER! MAKE IT ILLEGAL, JOHNSON!"
"Yes, sir!"

At any rate, the brain damage thing from E is, well, false. Check out Erowid.org's E section, look for their thing on the CBS documentary (CBS folks, the network that brings you cop shows that get special grants from the government for perpetrating anti-drug propaganda!) that exposed that certain lie.

This could very well be a great solution to the problem.

EDIT: But keep in mind the whole Brave New World thing. Governments been using drugs to abuse the populace (especially soldiers) for ever, and we don't want to make it worse.

 

Hahahaha, want some rockin rolls? Join the Army!

I can see the posters now. Uncle Sam surrounded by swirls of color holding out a pacifier.

They should put up blacklights and hand out free dayglo beads at recruitment offices.

Seriously, as someone who neither promptes nor condems the use of this stuff, and as someone who is familer with its effects, I can't see how a couple of X sessions are going to relieve a whole war's worth of blood, guts, fear, and resentment.

 

PTSD cannot be cured, its effects can be lessened, but the underlying problems can never be fixed.

I'll also restate what many people have pointed out. They're using an ingredient of ectasy, not ectasy itself.

 

<<I'll also restate what many people have pointed out. They're using an ingredient of ectasy, not ectasy itself.>>

This is why people who don't know about drugs shouldn't talk about them. MDMA is ecstasy. That's what it is. Period. If anything else is in it it is not pure ecstasy.