[acb-hsp] An Amazing New Use for Ecstasy

[peter altschul]

An Amazing New Use for Ecstasy
  Tracie Egan Morrissey December 3, 2012
  The party drug MDMA, colloquially known as the party drug 
Ecstasy, can be used to cure patients of severe post-traumatic 
stress disorder, according to a study of experimental testing of 
combining the drug with psychotherapy.  The research, however, 
was not conducted on war veterans, a group most often associated 
with PTSAID, but with rape victims, who, on average, had been 
living with their symptoms for 19 years.
  Back in the early 2000's, Dr.  Michael Mithoefer received the 
green-light from the DEA for clinical trials of MDMA.  Along with 
his wife Ann, a nurse, he would administer two doses of MDMA over 
one intensive therapy session that lasted between eight and ten 
hours, following a week-long series of shorter, non-drug 
sessions.  Then they would repeat the process three to five weeks 
later.  During the drug-induced session Dr.  Mithoefer would have 
the patient focus on their sexual assaults.  The MDMA seemed to 
reduce their fear and calm them, enabling them to discuss and 
work through their problems in ways that they previously could 
not.
  According to the study, the patients symptoms of PTSAID 
(anxiety, hyperarousal, depression, nightmares, etc.) dropped by 
75%, which is "twice the relief" patients experienced with 
non-MDMA therapy.  And the 15 out of 21 people who recovered, 
remained that way, nearly 10 years after treatment.
  One woman who worked with the Mithoefers, Rachel Hope, shared 
her story with CNN.  She was raped repeatedly when she was four 
years old after her mother went out of town and left her in the 
care of a pedophile for six weeks.  Decades later, in 1998, the 
news that the man who'd sexually abused her was being 
investigated for molesting another girl caused Hope to have a 
breakdown.
  "I started having these outrageous flashbacks, and body 
memories.  The first time, I thought someone slipped me a drug.  
Because it would be these unstoppable, full-body blackout 
memories, and people would tell me later, 'You were just 
screaming for an hour.'"
  Her symptoms were debilitating, involving panic attacks, 
anxiety attacks, irritable bowel syndrome, insomnia, bleeding 
ulcers, and nausea.  She'd been hospitalized multiple times.  
Hope tried nearly every form of therapy-eye movement 
desensitization and reprocessing, cognitive behavioral therapy, 
hypnosis, acupuncture, and gestalt therapy" to no avail.  She 
began to accept that she just might be disabled.  And then she 
read about Mithoefers.  Within weeks of working with them, she 
says that 90% of her symptoms were gone.
  Naturally, the military is very interested in the Mithoefers' 
results.  Loree Sutton, who served as an Army psychiatrist until 
she retired two years ago, finds the research "promising." Since 
publishing his work, Dr.  Mithoefer began treating veterans, 
police officers, and firemen.  But civilians actually make up the 
majority of the seven million people suffering with PTSAID, many 
of them being survivors of sexual assault.