The Sunday TimesMay 4, 2008

Ecstasy is the key to treating PTSD

At last the incurably traumatised may be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. And controversially, the key to taming their demons is the ‘killer’ drug EcstasyAmy Turner

An Ecstasy tablet. That’s what it took to make Donna Kilgore feel alive again – that and the doctor who prescribed it. As the pill began to take effect, she giggled for the first time in ages. She felt warm and fuzzy, as if she was floating. The anxiety melted away. Gradually, it all became clear: the guilt, the anger, the shame.

Before, she’d been frozen, unable to feel anything but fear for 10 years. Touching her own arms was, she says, “like touching a corpse”. She was terrified, unable to respond to her loving husband or rock her baby to sleep. She couldn’t drive over bridges for fear of dying, was by turns uncontrollably angry and paralysed with numbness. When she spoke, she heard her voice as if it were miles away; her head felt detached from her body. “It was like living in a movie but watching myself through the camera lens,” she says. “I wasn’t real.”

Unknowingly, Donna, now 39, had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). And she would become the first subject in a pioneering American research programme to test the effects of MDMA – otherwise known as the dancefloor drug Ecstasy – on PTSD sufferers.

Some doctors believe MDMA could be the key to solving previously untreatable deep-rooted traumas. For a hard core of PTSD cases, no amount of antidepressants or psychotherapy can rid them of the horror of systematic abuse or a bad near-death experience, and the slightest reminder triggers vivid flashbacks


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article3850302.ece

Warm glow from magic mushrooms lasts and lasts: study

July 2, 2008 - 6:04PM


The feelings of well-being and life satisfaction brought on by the hallucinogen psilocybin, found in "magic" mushrooms, can last for months, a new study revealed.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland found that the majority of 36 volunteers who took psilocybin in controlled conditions continued to feel the beneficial effects for more than a year afterwards, the study, published Monday, showed.

"Most of the volunteers looked back on their experience up to 14 months later and rated it as the most, or one of the five most, personally meaningful and spiritually significant of their lives," said Roland Griffiths, a professor in the department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Neuroscience.

The first results of the clinical trial, aimed at uncovering the secrets of the "magic" mushrooms that have been used for religious or healing purposes in some cultures for centuries, were published in 2006.

Fourteen months after the trial, the 36 volunteers -- all in good physical and mental health -- were given the same questionnaire as well as some follow-up questions.

Results show that about the same proportion ranked their experience in the trial as one of the most personally meangingful or spiritually significant events of their lives.

"This is a truly remarkable finding," said Griffiths, lead author of the study which appeared in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

"Rarely in psychological research do we see such persistently positive reports from a single event in the laboratory."

He said the results gave credence to claims that the mystical-type experiences some people had during hallucinogen sessions may help patients suffering from cancer-related anxiety or depression.

Psilocybin could also be used as a possible treatment for drug dependance, the professor said.

He said his team was "eager" to continue their research, adding that although some of the volunteers had reported fear and anxiety immediately after receiving psilocybin, "none reported any lingering harmful effects."

However, the team warned against giving hallucinogens to people at risk of psychosis or other serious mental disorders, and said it was important that it be administered under controlled conditions.

Psilocybin is a plant alkaloid that affects some of the same brain receptors as serotonin, a neurotransmitter.

http://news.smh.com.au/world/warm-glow-from-magic-mushrooms-lasts-and-lasts-study-20080702-30lh.html

Here's thought for you.

Say a middle aged man, mid forties say, and his wife, a proffesional couple, well educated, responsible, good parents, pillars of the community, enjoy on an infrequent basis, an "E" and viagra evening at home, just having good sex, chemically enhanced.

Say they are caught in possession of an "E" each, what punishment should they recieve?

No I'm not, fortunately.  

It did happen to a couple I knew back in blighty.

They were fined, but his name ended up in the local rag. Due to this  he lost his job, they lost their house, and ended up having to claw their way back into society.

Now who did they harm?