Ecstasy for Troubled Soldiers

Brian Doherty | February 18, 2005

The Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of MDMA (the drug more colloquially known as ecstasy) for U.S. vets from Iraq and Afghanistan suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms (formerly more colloquially known as shell shock). This is part of an encouraging trend in the scientific normalization of formerly forbidden psychedelic and empathogenic substances.

[Link via Rational Review.]

Comments

|2.19.05 @ 2:09PM|#

Ecstasy works good for nontroubled people as well. Its a nice release now and then.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of MDMA (the drug more colloquially known as ecstasy) for U.S. vets from Iraq and Afghanistan suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms (formerly more colloquially known as shell shock).

How about for victims of rape or when a close loved one dies? Can X mend a broken heart?

|2.19.05 @ 3:28PM|#

s.a.m.,

Probably works a lot better than liquor.

|2.19.05 @ 3:37PM|#

The X buzz certainly last longer and its a better, cleaner high than getting drunk!

|2.20.05 @ 5:53AM|#

Is this really a good idea? You have people that are under severe stress and their mind is probably not working normally. Ive tried X before and it changes you a little bit. So I think if you give X to a person whose brain isn't functioning right that might mess them up even more.

|2.20.05 @ 10:01AM|#

Ive tried X before and it changes you a little bit. So I think if you give X to a person whose brain isn't functioning right that might mess them up even more.

The idea is to "change you a little bit." This isn't take-it-in-your-living-room- and-hope-you-feel-better thing. They're giving it to the soldiers in a clinical setting with a psychiatrist to help them work through their PTSD, and the ecstasy is only a part of the overall therapy.

For a comprehensive review of future, present, and past ecstasy research, check out the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies Research Page.

|2.20.05 @ 1:10PM|#

"Shell Shock" is is a misnomer: the concussion effects of exploding shells are physical effects that fade quchkly. The psychological effects of prolonged stress are very different. Oddly enough until about 1990, only the Israeli army had a clear idea of how to deal with them and they got this data from the Imperial German Army! After WWI, the Gewrmans studied the fabled "shell shock" and dicovered that it was very different from the convnetional wisdom:
a) It was not caused by explosions, but by prolonged stress.
b) There was no such thing as "battle hardening", in fact, the stress was cumulative.
c) Training could mitigate the symptoms, but almost all would succumb at some point [360 days of combat is the rule of thumb].
d) To avoid destructive [often fatal] guilt in individuals who succumb, it must not be treated as a "phycological flaw", or, worse, a "lack of moral fibre", but as a type of wound inflicted by emey action.

The Germans and Israelis officially termed it "exhaustion", while we now refer to it as some variant of "stress injury". Everybody uses terms that are not indicative of any weakness on the part of the victim. As one Combat Stress Counselor said to me in the Balkans: "Expecting the mind to resist battlefield stress is like expecting flesh to resist bullets. Above all, we must not blame these guys for failing to resist the irresistable - or let them blame themselves."

Using "medication" to relieve the "pain of the injury" is fully in keeping with the whole idea of stress injuries not being a part of "nut ward #8". I'm told that some counselors even say "Look this required stress counselling is a bunch of BS, but we have to go through the motions, it's a requirement for out-processing. So, have a drink and let me tell you about Viet Nam ..." [they were ALL combat veterans in that Stress Control outfit]

|2.20.05 @ 2:34PM|#

"They're giving it to the soldiers in a clinical setting with a psychiatrist to help them work through their PTSD, and the ecstasy is only a part of the overall therapy."

Dude, bad trip!