A refugee funding America's psychedelic renaissance | Hacker News Reader

A refugee funding America's psychedelic renaissance

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87 pointspmcpinto21 comments

I've written similar things before, and it applies here too:

To the extent that anyone on HN knows an active philanthropist looking for potentially highly impactful but severely underfunded causes - send them this article.

I believe there's a case that funding MDMA research has very high dollar/impact returns - or at least that it's likely enough that it's worth a thorough exploration.

It sounds like they still need to raise about $10-15 million, which is shockingly small compared to the ~$1.5bn/yr NIMH budget - and all of it will come from private philanthropists, as governments aren't yet willing to fund the work and for-profit companies don't see much profit yet due to the lack of patentability.

If you're on HN and this is the first you're hearing about this research, some resources:

- A short video excerpt from a documentary on MDMA therapy - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9iKx2MKS70

- NY Times article - https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/us/ptsd-mdma-ecstasy.html

I've always thought this experiment would be interesting: take two groups of partisan voters, a group from the left and right.

Ask them a series of multiple choice questions as well as some long answer questions. Then, give them MDMA and repeat the previous testing.

Not MDMA, but correlational data exists for classic psychedelics: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28443703

Yes, correlation, not causation.

Interesting, confirmed my bias from read of abstract.

The public value of the anti-authoritarian sentiment as an externality of psychedelic use could be quite high, depending on what it could prevent in our future.

This seems to be based on prior usage, so causation vs correlation comes into question. And I'm not saying this at it is used on reddit, conservatives most definitely would be highly less likely to take psychedelics.

Not to say that this study is uninteresting or useless though, I think there is a lot to be learned in this area, and I would argue that it would be very much in the best interests of Democrats (if that's truly what they are, I'm not so sure) to decriminalize these sorts of studies. Personally, I happen to believe that most Democrats and Republicans are essentially the same people wearing different costumes.

Yep

> correlational data exists

Oops!!

Presumably those on the right would be much less likely to take MDMA. (I'm sure you are not suggesting doping them without consent, since that would be unethical.)

all of it will come from private philanthropists, as governments aren't yet willing to fund the work

It's against the law. Schedule I substances are prohibited from receiving federal funds for research.

Would you please provide the exact law? MAPS[1] is a non-profit specifically dedicated to gathering and allocating funding for such studies, and considering how long they've been around doing what they're doing, I'd say they've figured out how to bypass the stringent requirements and remain on this side of the law.

Full disclosure, I was involved with them briefly. The paperwork process needed to get the rights to run such trials lasts years, but they are eventually successful in making the studies a reality.

[1] http://www.maps.org

I based it on https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/02/... (somewhere in the middle), but I'm still looking for a specific cite. In the meantime you'll see that MAPS only operates with private funding:

http://www.maps.org/donate-redirect/funding-priorities

A license to research and federal funding are separate issues, and my comment was only intended to address the latter.

Also read this: The two most exciting developments in psychopharmacology in the 21st century so far have been ketamine for depression and MDMA for PTSD. (if I’m wrong, and history decides these two drugs weren’t the biggest developments, the most likely failure mode is that psilocybin turned out to be more important than MDMA)

http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/06/05/is-pharma-research-wors...

Don't forget MDMA for temporary relief from the symptoms of advanced Parkinsons.

http://www.ecstasy.org/info/parkinsons.html

I think this area is a genuine modern example of a suppressed technology.

> It sounds like they still need to raise about $10-15 million, which is shockingly small compared to the ~$1.5bn/yr NIMH budget

1% of the budget of a federal organisation is not that small...

It's needed over about 4 years, so ~0.25% of the yearly budget instead of 1%.

Though yes, still not entirely insignificant.

> a YouGov poll this month found that nearly two thirds of American adults would personally be willing to try MDMA, Ketamine, or Psilocybin if it was proven safe to treat a condition they have.

This seems very dubious. I find it hard to believe 3/4 of the population has an interest in any intoxicating substance let alone that trio. Do 3/4 of American adults know what these substances are and how they work, let alone what they do?

Now try to imagine 3/4 of the general population on a high dose of psilocybin experiencing ego loss and the related 6 hour mental colonic of tossing every possible skeleton out of their brains closet.

Replace "MDMA" with "alcohol" and it's not that hard to imagine... Most normal people, when presented with the question "would you try X drug", wouldn't have the experience to know about ego death and things, so it's probably not a concern for them.

www.fundamental.nyc and www.maps.org are highly related

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