News Ecstasy... A Possible Treatment For PTSD

[freefloat]

diamorphine and diacetylmorphine is heroin. They must list it under the generic table not by its brand name. Such a flouoxetine is Prozac. In the generic you will see the label read flouoxetime or if you get the brand name it will read Prozac. same stuff. The Canadian equivalent, to the BNF, is the CPS. It didn't have methaodne in it until about 4-5 years ago. Even though using methadone for addiction was first used in Vanocuver in 1962. It's the most prescibed drug outside of hospitals in this province, rat poison(warfarin) being the one most prescribed in the hospital.

I became very aware of the use of heroin in the UK about 10 years ago. Some pateints are non-compliant with methadone or find its side effects difficult to manage. There is also an appeal that being on prescibed heroin has over metahdone due to social stratification with in that sub-culture. Interestingly their is little prescibing of metahdone in France as they use subutex or suboxone primarily.

 

[anthony]

Freefloat, you are broad brushing the active ingredient with the recreational application of Heroin, which is illegal. The active ingredient version of Heroin is not the illegal street version of Heroin. They are vastly different things in actuality. What is available to a doctor to prescribe in some countries under very specific and tightly controlled prescriptions is not the same as trying to state Heroin is legal. Because it is not legal, it is an illegal class A drug. The active ingredient has a tightly controlled, prescribed usage, which very few people would ever be prescribed.

Also, the wikipedia is not a very accurate source for anything medical... in fact you are more than likely doing your argument an injustice by using it, because it is freely edited by anyone with an opinion which could derive from one study, which does not make something empirical, thus a fact.

This is like trying to make a statement that Marijuana is legal by using the active ingredient, or Cocaine by using its active ingredient... or this very threads subject, people confusing Ecstasy with MDMA. Street ecstasy is not the same as prescribed MDMA.

Many illegal drugs have legally prescribed and very specific, active ingredient variants that are manufactured by pharmaceutical companies under strict guidelines... not made in a backyard shed and sold on the street as that same version, thus the difference in broad brushing the term.

 

[freefloat]

I am broad brushing nothing. Heroin(diactylmorhine) is legal in the UK as some can posses/manufacture/distribute it. Qualludes were taken of the market in the 80s as they had a huge abuse potential and other medications could replace their purpose. Therefore they were now illegal to posses/manufacturer/distribute. That drug is illegal as no one may posses it. The drug in itself is illegal. By your understanding there is no differentiation in two. So someone with prescribed Heroin(diactylmorhine) in the UK is breaking the law. However that is not true. A<>B.

If you look at the thread I started in the chat area to discuss this issue i spoke of the need for definitions in what these words mean as their are technical. Used about in the media and in common language in less that accurate ways. To have any clear discussion such things need to be understood to avoid confusion. Just as the studies, statutes, etc open with definitions.

Is morphine illegal? No, at least not here in Canada. Doesn’t mean I can walk around and hand it out to who ever I please. Cook it up in basement. That’s illegal possession of a controlled substance. Its legal as it has appropriate uses that we deem a greater good despite its misuse. It has therapeutic value. Some may have illegal POSESSION but its not the drug that is illegal. We speak of morphine as an illicit drug. When discussing drug policy to differentiate between the two.

Making a drug legal is placing it out of the Schedule 1(US) drug class. Schedule 1 drugs are deemed to have no therapeutic use. Qualludes (meaning its atomic structure), Heroin(meaning its molecular structure) are illegal in the states. Heroin is legal just as morphine is. By making a drug legal they are moving from the class that states no therapeutic use to one that recognizes it has therapeutic use. This what they have done in some European countries. Legalized it. However is is illegal for someone to posses/manufacture/distribute illicit heroin. The legality is in the action not the drug. The act of possesing i toutside of legal channels is.

People in Canada say machine guns are illegal. They also say automatics are illegal. Some here can obtain a legal route to posses fully-automatic rifles and shot guns. Some refer the term automatic to mean semi-automatic loading rifle. Of which some are restricted and some aren't. Automatic hand guns are legal here. Some are prohibited some are restricted. Being military or ex-military I'm confident this is familiar.

The language can be an issue.

By legalizing a drug all people are asking for is that there be a legal path to follow to obtain it. That there’s is now some recognition it is therapeutic and for the better good. There are strong arguments to support making highly addictive drugs legal in order to treat the addict. We used methadone. A synthetic opiate that when taken oral has a 24-36 hour half life. Heroin is about 6-8 hours. All addicts will use a variety of opiates to not go into withdrawal. That is all most addicts hope to achieve in a day. It differs to morphine in that it crosses the blood brain barrier 3x faster than morphine. There is a rush. Short lived as it depends on the level of the opiate in the blood that time. If it is far under the persons normal level then they wont get much if any rush(high) it merely fills the receptors so a person does go back into withdrawal. Addicts use morphine, dilaudid, phentynl or other opiates that are legal. If caught with them with out a prescription they are charged with illegal POSSESiON of a controlled substance.

The only approved drugs here to treat the effects of withdrawal from chemical dependance to opiates(heroin, dilaudid, morphine etc etc) is methadone and suboxone. I won't get into suboxone. Retention is a struggle as there are rules to legally obtain and maintain on a methadone program. Some fall through the cracks for that reason. Some will still want heroin for the effect or other reasons and continue to use while on methadone. They would get kicked off the program. That seemed dumb to me so I lobbied our College of physicians and had the three strikes rule struck. Years later that became known as harm reduction.

For a variety or reasons some won't access methadone. Typically living in a brutal life style full of violence, illness, disease, homelessness, abuse, incarceration etc etc etc. Depending on what and where the study comes form the cost to society in medical, legal and other costs per untreated heroin addict is $60,000 year.

They way to distribute drugs is through doctors. My doctor's had no path to follow to prescribe heroin. As it is illegal. If doctors prescribe morphine in an inject able from to treat addicts they could be found guilty of trafficking and the college would penalize them for improper use of a narcotic. Despite injectable morphine being legal.

When we speak of legalizing a drug it means to recognize it has therapeutic use. As obviously it would move to another class that defines it as having such efficacy. Legalizing MDMA restores it being recognized as having a therapeutic value. Its not synonymous to having it in vending machines.

Some feel that there is sufficient benefit to people and society to have all drugs legal. To do so in a safe and advantageous way. That reduces the harm associated with illegal or illicit drug use. Whether it be to treat addiction(improves their lives) or for recreation or spiritual uses. Exemptions for some psychedelics have been granted to certain indigenous peoples in North America. They may manufacture/distribute/posses and use but amoung their own people. Peyote being one.

In Canada marijuana is legal if you follow the channels and have a medically recognized illness you may manufacture/posses and use free of criminal conviction. Or you can go to a store and buy it. To say its illegal is incorrect. It's like saying morphine is illegal. Its legal but controlled just like fully-automatic rifles are.

If someone sells you a ford and it turns out to be a Chevy, does that make it a ford? If you buy a drug under the slang term for MDMA(Ecstasy) and it turnouts to be MA is it really MDMA? Nope. You got ripped off. Thats one of the risks legalization would remove. The fact that it is illegal induces the risk to the consumer. By it remaining illegal the precursor products for pure MDMA in tablet form have become increasingly harder for the cookers to obtain. Now they use other chemicals and processes to try and mimic MDMA by creating god knows what. A drug with no history of its toxicity. Where as the toxicity of MDMA is know and shown to be more begin than ETOH. In Western Canada we have had 18 deaths of kids as young as 16 in the past three months from taking that crap. If they had had access to legal MDMA they’d all be alive. So who is winning this war? Personally, I hope they catch the dealers and throw the book at them.

Same thing happened in ETOH prohibition. People were cooking up moonshine and other were going blind etc from it. One of the reasons prohibition was repealed. People also used the reasoning that organized crime would be weakened by repealing it. The illicit/illegal drug trade has them more powerful than ever before. Cant stop them. That’s been tired. Cant stop people from using drugs we have been doing it for thousands of years.

Most who advocates legalization do so with the idea of a model that addresses the inherent issues in a responsible way. There is a responsible way to do it. It's not rocket science. Nor will babies end up in microwaves.

Ecstasy is MDMA or at least traditionally it was. It is now accepted that pills called Ecstasy are typically not MDMA. The probability is higher of obtaining MDMA when it is sold in a powder format. Yes an unfortunate title to the thread.

I hope you now can see what legalization means in the field. When we speak of psychology we use the language and meaning with in that field. When we speak of the law we use the meaning of it within that context. When speaking of drug policy you use those definitions. Eh?

Well that's alot. Thankfully my GF is very patient. Abiot long but it needed a through explination to answer the PP questions. Just as legal distributuon for heroin differs from legal distributuon marijuana so would be different for coke, MDMA, LSD etc. If we wish to redcue the negative effects of drugs in our society why is it getting worse? Been getting worse with no end in sight. That war was lost before it started.

 

[heidi]

I did acid in high school and I stopped having migraines for a year. Why? Who knows. It seems like we don't even have mastery over our understanding of the brain but we'll be prescribed medication for it.

 

[freefloat]

Other halluciongens have been reported to treat migraines, cluster headaches. The reults get suppresed as the drug companies would rather sell you their stuff. Research is suppressed due to UN convention.
No risk to taking LSD in a reasonable dose and look at the results. Hummm.
Did the migraines return?

 

[anthony]

No risk to taking LSD in a reasonable dose and look at the results. Hummm.

What rubbish. Data presented from some trials on that caused all sorts of long-term issues for people, at extremely low doses, ie. average 3.5 uses per month, let alone daily. There are major percentages with now similar longevity effects directly from the side effects of LSD. Complete nonsense.

There isn't a conspiracy about narcotics... I have read plenty of results about some potential uses in controlled manners, however; it keeps coming back to the severity of their side effects, that completely outweigh any good the drug could do in even the smallest of doses.

You cannot argue acid stopped my migraines if you compare that across 10,000 subjects, who may all stop their migraines, or maybe they only think their migraines stopped due to the hallucinogenic affect, then you have 80% of your subjects addicted to the drug, losing their jobs, serious health consequences, and so the list of extreme to dangerous side effects continue for such drugs.

That is not comparable to a safer alternative, that might have a lesser treatment rate, but significantly reduced side effect ratio, less than a few percent or such, even becoming a negative rare ratio for any lethal effect, compared to the lethality of a narcotic in general.

Again, it's not a conspiracy theory, the facts and dangers of narcotics are real, which is what keeps them from being prescription medication. Those that active ingredients are prescription, you can't get hold of anyway unless in rare cases, ie. doctors prescribe marijuana to cancer sufferers as they weigh the side effects of marijuana to other options, and it comes out better against the circumstance of cancer treatment. Cancer already being possibly lethal, so the spectrum is vastly changed for treatment.

Try and make that argument for anxiety though, which is present in 99% of the population at many times within a lifespan compared to safer alternatives due to the demand of the problem versus the associated risks when compared with other, safer alternatives.

This stuff is not rocket science. Commonsense and ethics are at play here by all prescribing physicians.

 

[heidi]

Well this was in the 90s. So before the information age. I wouldn't have drawn a parallel between the two things. I figured I just mastered some mind over matter technique or something. But yeah they returned. And that's the only time they ever lessened. And I've had them from the time I was six until the present time.

 

[anthony]

Sorry, wasn't directed at you heidi, but freefloat using it to try and justify conspiracy. Just continued with your example...

 

[freefloat]

That's to bad they returned. So none of the current meds will work? If a drug comany doenst hold nor get an patent they don't bother with it. There shareholders would revolt!

Here is some research that shows there are others that had a similar or same experince as you did. Just like the MDMAa trials they see benefits from single or limited use. Can you imagine taking LSD daily.. YUK. Good thing its not addictive.


http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...+3+Mar+from+10-13+GMT+for+monthly+maintenance

 

[Girl3]

The newer studies - those yet to be started I mean - will be about synthetic congeners of marijuana - that is to say substances that work at CB1 receptors in the brain. These substances - and a few are already synthesized and are gearing up for Phase II trials - are 1000x more potent than smoking pot. They aren't designed to get you high though. These will be medications designed to settle the part of your brain that is all lit up like a Chistmas tree in Rockefeller Plaza.

Starting later this year I will be participating in one of those studies - it will be an IV/very short half-life version (attached to a radioactive carbon isotope with a half life of less than 2.5 hours.) I already went through one where they mapped my CB1 receptors - contrast my brain to the normals in that study and I am brighter than the sun. The upcoming study will look at how I feel with those receptors "calmed" or turned down a peg.

As for the ketamine study I underwent - that was the best 20 hours in my life - until I was retriggered by my husband. The ketamine study in a year or so will be completed and published. It will - in my humble estimation - be an incredible tool for helping reset the brain.

Anthony is on the money with so many things - and retraumatization is one of them. I might add that I would never do ketamine on my own after having had it - it was scary while I was getting it. I thought I would die, but I couldn't move. The great feeling was after it wore off - but the doctors and nurses watching over me were absolutely crucial.

 

[anthony]

I read that article, and it outlines that the benefits of controversial drugs is surpassed by their addictive qualities and extended side effects. They do acknowledge they work in some areas, but again, acknowledge there are safer alternatives... thus ethics still at play. Very little in it on narcotics though, for those reasons.

 

[freefloat]

Girl3: So the ketamine treatment is done with talk therapy at the time or is it strictly phamacological?