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Comment by everdev | Hacker News Reader

This is fantastic news. MDMA and psychedelics when taken in the right setting with the right support people can be incredibly healing. Right now it's primarily focused on PTSD and other traumas, but it can be a powerful experience for improving relationships or personal growth as well.

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I can anecdotally confirm this. I took MDMA under pretty normal party circumstances and honestly it was life changing. I've found it easier to be friendly, talkative, relaxed, and positive, even weeks later. I'm interested to see how long these effects last. My intrusive thoughts have been lowered and my overall outlook is more positive.

I don't have PTSD, but I do have depression, anxiety, and unofficially, I probably lie on the autism spectrum.

Can I prove anything with my sample size of one with plenty of confounding variables? Of course not. But does it make me personally believe the studies that have indicated it can be a good treatment for mental disorders are valuable and true? Absolutely.

I strongly believe that safe, controlled administration of pure, clean MDMA is something every adult should have the opportunity to legally try, especially in cases where evidence supports benefit to a psychological condition. And more research should happen. The mindset of "all drugs are heroin" has got to go.

I'm not advocating people taking pills they bought on the street, but I do support legalising of drugs that, when pure and controlled in dose like pharmaceutical medicine, don't cause a significant number of deaths or violence - such as MDMA and marijuana.

I strongly support destigmatization of drugs and more research, and the breakdown of the black and white border of "the government decides which drugs are good and which drugs are evil and everything else is for violent crackheads."

Have plenty of friends that have overcome social anxiety they've had their entire lives with just one night of MDMA.

It honestly feels like this is what has happened. I have to talk on the phone all day at my job and was not suited to it at all, and I won't pretend I suddenly enjoy it, but now I find it way easier to get thru than I did before.

I'll probably do it again. I just wish there were more studies so I could know how often is safe and optimal to take it.

Read Phikal by Alexander Shulgin, plenty of interesting information in there.

Really? I'd always thought Shulgin's PiHKAL [0] (Phenethylamines I Have Known And Loved) was more of a technical book. I'd never realised there was a more qualitative aspect to it. I'll be sure to check it out!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PiHKAL

Yea the first half of the book is a brief story of his life, that's a really interesting read for sure.

Scott Alexander has an interesting review: http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/11/book-review-pihkal/

Probably best to get a testing kit from e.g. DanceSafe[0] to at least confirm the stuff you've bought has MDMA in it. It is not uncommon for meth or other stuff (2C-B, or just inert filler) to be sold as MDMA.

(For the pedants: the positive test for the presence of MDMA does not prove that the substance isn't adulterated, but it's certainly better than a negative result.)

[0]: https://dancesafe.org/

On the very safe side: Not more often than every 6 weeks. Ideally not more than 15 doses in lifetime (that's what MAPS guidelines say). Stop once you are sad beyond the 'blue Tuesday' (not everyone has a blue Tuesday, but after repeated use it usually starts to happen and gets worse). There is quite some literature, sadly not nicely structured and concentrated in one place as far as I know.

I belive what you're saying isn't true and neither can I find a direct link to a MAPS guideline saying anything about the 15 doses in a lifetime.

In my experience I had blue mondays way worse on my first 3 times, and then I've got to the point where I am no longer blue on the days after. That would be my 6 times over a 5 year period.

I would have to search for that, but limiting your total cumulative dose makes sense in light of research showing adverse brain changes in longtime and/or heavy users.

The 6 weeks number is more a rule of thumb. For some it's longer, for others shorter. In the beginning, it may not matter, but if you browse drug forums for a while, you'll see the pattern 'don't do it too often' emerge.

6 times over a 5 year period looks quite safe. I have some friends who have used MDMA more than that and some of them started to have longer 'sad' or 'depressed' periods, sometimes stretching into months. Again, it would be great if there was an authoritative manual for all of this, but I don't think something like that exists.

Same for me.

I took a bunch of molly, 20 minutes later gave my friend a hug and that was it.

I just also want to note that there are also people who have experienced negative reactions with just one night of MDMA. All drugs have side effects.

While I think MDMA-assisted psychotherapy is extremely promising, MDMA itself is definitely not risk free (especially when obtained from unregulated and adulterated sources); and various complications can and do occur.

> under pretty normal party circumstances

Were you alone or with friends? Home or out?

I'm not sure what sort of parties you go to, but home alone isn't much of a party by most definitions...

It's a great movie though.

Oh I skipped over the word party

I was at a New Years party at a few different nightclubs. With a friend who was also on it, and met a bunch of others that night too.

The mindset of "all drugs are heroin"

Ironically enough, heroin is one of the few of these banned substances that is actually approved normally for medical use [0] (Not in the USA actually, according to this reference).

The name "Heroin" itself, was a trademark of the Bayer corporation [1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin#Medical_uses

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin#History

I'm glad to hear about your life changing experience! MDMA-assisted psychotherapy, as done by MAPS, involves 12 therapy sessions along with 3 MDMA-assisted therapy sessions; as such, I expect the results to be stronger than MDMA under party circumstances.

The Phase 2 trials have showed that 63% no longer meets the criteria of PTSD 2 months after the last MDMA session, as compared to 25% for the placebo.

As for how long your results may last, another study conducted by MAPS after 2.5 years found that the effects have generally still persisted.

Yes there are also clinical trials underway with couples therapy comorbid with I think anxiety? or depression? (there needs to be a disease associated with it iirc it just can't be couples therapy)

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