US Government Gives Green Signal to Ecstasy Therapy Trials
California scientists are now going to see if the illegal psychoactive drug MDMA, commonly known as Ecstasy can be used to help alleviate anxiety in people diagnosed with life threatening illnesses like cancer.
After receiving the governments go ahead, the team led by Dr Philip Wolfson will include 18 cancer patients in his study where 13 of them will be treated with ecstasy while the rest will be given a placebo.
Here each participant will be given an MDMA pill of 125 milligrams or an 'active placebo' of 30 milligrams.
The aim of the project is to help patients fight depression or anxiety and to also make them find a measure of peace during the ecstasy fuelled psychotherapy sessions.
The facility where the trails will take place is located on a hilltop psychotherapy center in Main County.
Lead researcher Dr Wolfson believes that Ecstasy which has been banned by the US government for the last 3 decades can actually be a "transformationally potent" drug under controlled supervision and therapy settings.
Spokesman for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, in Santa Cruz, Brad Burge said, "Our hypothesis is that something is happening with MDMA that makes psychotherapy easier,"
"So with a lower dose of MDMA in the active placebo, it might fool the subject or the therapist. And by giving people the option of following up with another half dose, it just extends the window for therapy rather than making it more intense."
