This is huge. Oprah is on board for MDMA! In the March edition of O Magazine, there's an in-depth article about how the drug MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy, can help treat PTSD. In the first clinical trial of its kind, seventeen out of twenty patients no longer met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD after 2 or 3 psychotherapy sessions with MDMA.
If this subject sounds interesting to you, go ahead and read the full article - "Can A Single Pill Change Your Life?". It's hands-down the best written piece on the subject yet. Also, the author-- who was initially skeptical and not mentally ill-- took a dose as an experiment and it had a beneficial impact on her life. The description of her trip is very interesting as well. From somebody who has been interested in this issue for a long time, this is a big deal :) This is a great sign.
300,000 American soldiers are suffering from PTSD. That means that a soldier is more likely to die by suicide than be killed in combat. It's insane but I think that most people are reading this are familiar with the news about PTSD so I'm going to get right to the point.
There is a cure. We know that there is a cure because in the first ever clinical trial conducted in 2009 by an American doctor in South Carolina, seventeen out of twenty patients with treatment-resistant PTSD recovered after only a few dose sessions combined with psychotherapy. There is a reason why the youth of this world have named the drug MDMA 'ecstasy' and that is because it provides a 4-hour window to a world of happiness and acceptance, without fear or anxiety, where you can reprocess memories with self-acceptance so that the next day or next month they aren't overwhelming.
It's now 2011 and I haven't heard a single word from anybody in the government about this. Last July, I posted a diary about accepting the Meteor Blades challenge called What I'm Doing - Medicinal MDMA. Almost six months ago, I made a public commitment to work on an issue that I thought was important. While a pre-med student in San Francisco, I became interested in this issue since I have a little bit of experience with both trauma and ecstasy, and it combines my background in politics with my passion for helping people.
Now, I'd like to introduce the progress that I have made. Last month, I created The Med-X Campaign to promote the medical use of ecstasy to treat PTSD. The website is up, it looks good, and it's about 90% done. I need help and am looking for a Wordpress coder to help finish it, as well as anybody who wants to help fund it.
To put it simply, self-starting a project from design to development has been an incredible learning experience. Really I underestimated the amount of time that goes into creating a project from scratch. I'm a bit burned out now, but it's something I'm going to work on like a turtle, maybe 5-10 hours a week or something.
People ask me, why am I doing this? To me, this is real healthcare reform. This country may not be ready for universal healthcare, but we can probably make this small change in public policy (rescheduling one drug so that a doctor's office can prescribe not for take home use, but in a controlled setting, kind of like a methadone clinic) that would really heal people who are sick and wounded. There's 300,000 American soldiers with PTSD. That means 300,000 American families are suffering. Millions more, especially women who have been sexually assaulted, could benefit from a single dose of a drug that we know is safe and has minimal side effects. Because we all go through suffering, this is universal healthcare that we can make real.
Then there's the really grand goal of healing the world by bringing this medicine to the people who need it most - the people suffering in Haiti and Japan, the people who have been bombed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the people who have gone through a trauma so terrible that they will never recover without medical aid that a simple drug can provide in the right setting, with medical professionals and loved ones like family and friends to allow the process of healing.
As always, patience and persistence are the keys here. Medical MDMA won't happen tomorrow, or maybe even next year. If you or somebody you know has PTSD, I wish I could refer you to MDMA therapy in your area, but it's difficult right now. Remember that the wheels of change are turning. With Oprah on board, she'll bring the mainstream and that's what I'm hoping to harness once the website and video PSA is finished. Keep me in your prayers, thanks for reading!