Suicidal Vet Calls MDMA Treatment ‘a Miracle'
thedailybeast.com
thedailybeast.com
Went out one weekend and had a mid-range dose of MDMA and with the afterglow in the days later I felt like a new person, complete with a spring in my step.
It felt like I had been hoarding a lot of useless stuff in my mind and never being comfortable in my head, while MDMA was the clear-out I needed.
I wouldn't advocate for each depressed or anxious person to try it as a cure-all, but I definitely advocate for more research (and have donated to the cause) and greatly reducing the stigma around the drug
I know exactly what you mean. You hit the nail on your head. It's like "Oh, why do I spend so much time worrying about little things". It just grabs the shit and dumps it out. It's the greatest perspective on life and love and the best way to reorder your priorities.
I only later learned more about dosages and found that the downsides are at higher (1.5mg/kg+) doses and with long re-dosing
Besides, if you would have read the article - they are mentioning dosages of 125mg.
I would also be confident enough to say that MDMA is not as linear in dosages against body weight and _almost_surely_ it depends way more on your digestive than your body mass.
PS: to be clear, I did this with people who were multiples of my own weight (68kg) and incredibly petite ladies who were smaller than me. Dosage has little correlation with the effects they would get.
So I’ve got a feeling that your point comes from reading some info on the internet, rather than your own experience.
I can't believe I'm saying this on HN, looks like it's finally just another subreddit: I have plenty experience, sure.
Source: My own and my friends' experiences.
Edit: my apologies, I didn't see the /kg part of your equation. After doing the math, yes that seems like a reasonable beginner/small dose.
Always start with a low/threshold dose first and go from there (this might be less practical for MDMA, where you want to limit repeated exposure).
Smaller girls I knew would be fine with 100mg doses and big dudes would need about 200mg or so. Most people would do 125mg - 150mg.
https://www.quitalcohol.com/alcohol-abuse/alcohol-and-suicid...
https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_vis=...
Causal association has been ruled out in the case of depression, and in regards to anxiety, the primary mental system it is involved with, the interaction goes both ways, with cost vs benefit unclear and academically unsettled.
It’s only allowed because it’s very old and well integrated to some societies.
I have seen people that destroyed themselves using alcohol, but most people can deal with it just fine. That’s also the problem when trying to regulate it, as it is not just a drug but a cultural thing in many countries. I have a hard time imagining Germany without its beer culture or France or Italy without their wine culture.
Plus since this is a counterfactual, we don't actually need alcohol for preservation anymore. We have refrigeration.
The bit about Germany and beer is merely observational bias. You can’t imagine those countries differently because that’s the way things are for your lifetime. I’m sure in an alternative universe there’s someone talking about German weed culture, or German poppy culture.
Either way, alcohol clearly isn’t going away, and trying to make it go away is foolish. The point is that we’ve normalized a very dangerous compound due to historical reasons, and it’s fascinating.
And of course it’s observational bias, I said that I personally can’t imagine how the culture of these countries would be without alcohol, though I’m sure people would get along just fine (we don’t need alcohol to survive after all). Just saying that not everything needs to be banned, otherwise we might as well ban sugar and salt as they probably kill just as many (or more) people as alcohol.
MDMA brings some health risks that shouldn't be viewed lightly, though. Be careful.
In addition to clinical research they also do a lot of public education on harm reduction and safety regarding psychedelics, so they’re an excellent resource for people who have questions or could possibly benefit from participating in a clinical trial.
Generally about 200mg in a night, usually at once or 100mg twice an hour apart. That was actually quite alot to start on when you don't have a tolerance (I'm about 60kg), you could definitely start with 100mg and get something out of it. Sometimes I'd do more, sometimes less.
I was able to notice the lowered depression after two or maybe three doses within the span of about six weeks or less. No therapy, except the natural therapy of feeling very comfortable with people and being able to talk to them more honestly. Definitely had some therapy-like conversations while on it.
It felt like I was able to let go of a bunch of stupid stuff and start focusing on things that were more important, especially people. I became less materialistic, started socializing more, and had more confidence in myself and a better outlook on the future. I also seem to enjoy music more even after weeks without drugs, which is nice.
And I'd like to clarify: Basically cured. I mean, I'm still a cynical person many times, but I don't have the constant worry (save for once a month, monthly hormones suck). I'm much more positive about life for the most part.
This is a big red flag. You absolutely should have doubts. Our brains are very complicated and poorly understood, and psychoactive drugs are extremely risky. If you really have no doubts you should take a big step back and realize that you are probably wrong about most things and everyone else is too.
I've experienced with a lot of drugs, and it's true that MDMA has some seriously beneficial effects in terms of turning around depression, anxiety, introversion, etc. However I've never used these or other (hard) drugs more than periodically and recreationally.
That's a whole array of pathologies and symptoms, for which there is no single pharmacological solution.
Many comments in this thread are over-standardising mental illness as well as the (supervised administration) therapy presented in the linked article, which is about much more than dosage and frequency. On top of that, the patient in the article expresses many specificities that are unlikely to be matched by most patients.
This is, to me, the first negative aspect of banning a drug -- it suppressed 99% of the potential evidence base and replaces it with poor 'SWIM-based' anecdotes.
That's what I meant: apologies if my wording led you to read me differently.
conviction |kənˈvɪkʃ(ə)n| 2 a firmly held belief or opinion
belief |bɪˈliːf| an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof
opinion |əˈpɪnjən| 1 a view or judgement formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge
Don't get me wrong, I think it should be legal, but lets not pretend it is comparable to alcohol.
Edit: TL;DR MDMA probably has incredible medical benefits, but this does not mean that it can be safely consumed at the same frequency as alcohol or tobacco.
Once a week is sustainable in the short term but I am not recommending that and make no claims as to its safety in the long term. I would have no way of knowing other than googling studies.
That being said I'd still like a source for the claim:
"Yes but MDMA specifically will mangle your brain after very little recreational usage relative to almost all other drugs."
I've known a person or two that simply didn't know how to space out their use, and did wind up with depression as a result. But this is the sort of thing that you can teach so long as you are honest about the rest of your drug education. It is something you can teach when you sell it to people. You can limit what folks can buy and keep a record of when people buy it - we already do this with some decongestants, after all. It isn't that there is not risks, but your comment is misguided on what constitutes more common recreational use of this particular drug and the things we can do to avoid this situation.
Would you prove that please?
https://www.thelancet.com/cms/attachment/b3a9c7d1-bb08-42f3-...
Two points to note: (a) The study looked at the effect of the 'street' drug Ecstacy - ie. cut with other harmful drugs - not pure MDMA; (b) Perhaps the low 'harm to self' rating is an indirect product of the fact that it is illegal - if it was more widely available people would abuse it much more than alcohol and it would get a higher 'self harm' rating
[0] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
Alcohol and cigarettes are not really comparable to MDMA, and I just wanted to make that point. Marijuana? Sure, in much the same category, probably safer. MDMA is a whole different class of chemical.
And a certain percentage of people that tried that would get addicted and die from either acute or chronic effects.
Addiction potential and usage patterns are part of the harm profile of a drug. Alcohol is measurably worse.
> In the fall of 2002 George Ricaurte, the Dark Prince of suspect science, published an article in the prestigious journal Science that claimed that a “common recreational dose” of MDMA caused severe damage to the dopamine systems of monkeys.[26] (Parkinson’s disease involves the death of dopamine neurons, so extensive damage to your dopamine axons could presumably cause symptoms similar to Parkinson’s.) The press and politicians went mad. Draconian new anti-MDMA laws were passed, including the infamous RAVE Act, which made it illegal to throw a party if you “should have known” that some people would be using drugs at it. MAPS, which had been on the verge of finally having its MDMA post-traumatic stress disorder research approved, was stopped cold in the face of the apparent new evidence of MDMA’s horrific dangers.
> More than a year later, after scathing criticism from TheDEA.org, the house of cards collapsed when Ricaurte sheepishly admitted that the experiment never really happened: The monkeys had actually been given massive doses of methampetamine, not MDMA! He also admitted that no matter what they had tried, they had been unable to damage monkey’s dopamine systems with real MDMA.
Now of course if you consumed alcohol at anywhere near the frequency you consume water that wouldn't be good either, but why would that be a fair comparison?
Not really comparable. Would be comparing someone who has used MDMA 1-2 a week for 20 years against someone who had a couple of beers a week in college then stopped.
Heavy prolonged use / abuse of MDMA is damaging. Same with any drug
Which are real-world, observable patterns. I'm not sure why we should ignore that?