This just in…. MDMA may become legal.
But keep on your clothes and stop gnawing the air, there, Miley. It’s just going to be for psychiatric purposes. Per HuffPost: “The Drug Enforcement Administration last week gave a green light to a clinical study that will test the safety and efficacy of MDMA for use in treating anxiety in people with life-threatening illnesses.” And that’s good enough for me when the current sitch stash we’ve been working with needs a revamp. TBH, the love drug isn’t my bag. But, according to most others who’ve taken it, it’s fantastic affinity grease for dealing with other people and life in general. Which makes it also a great therapy drug. In fact, this li’l study done five years ago on PTSD patients resulted in staggering stat numbers that favor its success:
“In 2010, a small U.S. study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in the treatment of PTSD found that 83 percent of those who had been treated while on the drug no longer showed symptoms of PTSD. The study was sponsored by MAPS. A follow-up study, published in 2012, found that most of those subjects remained symptom free and that none of them reported harm from the initial use of MDMA. The researchers said those results backed up their claim that MDMA-assisted psychotherapy can have lasting effects after just a handful of treatments.”
Ya know, while I’m currently a chemical-free kid, I know a lotta people who I care about that might benefit from using new options as a stepping stone. I kinda dig the idea of opening up drug assisted therapy to stuff that we’ve not yet been willing to try (DMT, LSD, that fungus stuff) but know works from the people who’ve attempted it (underhandedly – with docs who believe in it enough that they’re willing to lose their license if they get found out). And I’m not talking Party Monster club kids, just looking to do a complimentary ecstasy sesh from their shrink’s sofa.
I mean I’ve seen these human-interest pieces before focusing on middle aged housewives who’ll try the likes of MDMA other psychedelics outta desperation… and get life-altering results. Generally people who do this (if they aren’t just junkbags or bored million-heirs) are at the end of their rope. They’ve tried everything else. And, while I dunno about the efficacy of Molly, I do know that for many peeps whose next stop on the fraught freight train is to get out and tie themselves to the tracks, nothing’s too exotic an option. They’re even willing to cross borders and squat in a jungle hut with a shaman drinking mystery tea that’ll finally rip the scab off’a their subconscious trauma once and for all. People want to get better. But, many times, they don’t know how. And part of that’s ‘cause the drugs we’ve been using not only fail to uncover or assuage any trauma, but they become a crutch that covers it – a foreign limb cane calcified and reinforced into our bodies via dependency and addiction, therein creating a whole new world of problems. Once you realize that, the journey’s even harder and darker than at the start. You hafta extract the crutch. Then you hafta extract the pain that it put you through while addicted. Then you have to extract the pain that made you need it in the first place. What an effing mess. It’s an insanely challenging path that’ll decimate the meek; that’s why most detour into denial instead.
I can’t say that MDMA would be any better or worse – even though it’s meant to be monitored by professionals in a profesh setting to get patients to be less emotionally inhibited when backtracking in their brains for therapy purposes (versus a “take at home, every X – pardon the pun – hours type of regimen). For all I know, that same 40 year old housewife might end up leaving her family forever, armed with a few glow sticks gripped between her teeth, and decide she’s “found herself” huffing mystery dust off the seat of a toilet in the handicapped stall of downtown’s Club Dream. I dunno. But for the realm of mind-openers that aren’t addictive, this certainly feels like an excellent step and segue into making that genre the next legal lubricant toward self-actualization.
But maybe that’s just ‘cause I can’t wait till Starbucks starts serving Green D.M.Tea Lattes.
“What did you say? I couldn’t hear you over the triple rainbow shooting your of your face holes.”
“Wait… did I just say that out loud?”