GIVING A 'DEMON DRUG' ITS DUE

About a year ago, ABC News aired a documentary called Ecstasy Rising, for
which I was interviewed. In a column published shortly thereafter, I
remarked that this was the first time I'd ever seen the drug Ecstasy (MDMA)
portrayed in a positive light on mainstream American television.

Produced by Peter Jennings, Ecstasy Rising detailed how the U.S. government
had sponsored faulty studies, and then spread alarmist warnings about the
dangers of Ecstasy to the media based on the findings.

The documentary also featured doctors who believed Ecstasy could be helpful
for patients dealing with emotional trauma, and recreational users who
found the drug cathartic. I've written two books about Ecstasy and its
culture. Like others who've researched the drug, I saw the documentary as
the start of a sea change in both governmental and public perception of
what can easily be described as the most demonized recreational substance
of the 1990s.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has recently announced it has
approved a South Carolina study in which American soldiers suffering from
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan will
be offered MDMA to help them cope with things like recurring nightmares and
flashbacks. The news suggests Ecstasy's too-simple reputation as a scourge
of youth and nothing else has met its end

Some experts in the study of Post-Traumatic Stress -- a set of symptoms
once referred to as "shell shock," and which may occur in the civilian
community after abuses such as rape -- have even contended that Ecstasy
could prove to be "a wonder drug" in the treatment of this disorder.

Such news would come as no surprise to many doctors and therapists. In
1984, experts from institutions as respected as the Harvard Medical School
and the American Journal of Psychiatry campaigned to keep the then-legal
drug from becoming a Schedule 1 illegal substance under U.S. law, meaning
it would be treated in similar fashion to heroin and cocaine. They had a
body of evidence to go on. In the early 1980s, the medical administration
of MDMA showed positive results in treating some psychological disorders,
including Post-Traumatic Stress.

Ecstasy's medical potential seemed promising. But pressure from the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Agency -- no doubt connected to the fact that Ecstasy was
becoming a popular drug in nightclubs -- overcame the claims of the medical
community. In 1985, MDMA was made Schedule 1. By FDA standards, that also
means it is believed to have "no accepted medical use."

The news that the FDA and DEA have loosened up even a little is thus quite
tantalizing. But it's also frustrating that such a step has taken over 20
years.

In the United States, it's understood that 30% of all soldiers who have
seen combat suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder at some point in
their lives. Moreover, after the fall of the Twin Towers in 2001, there was
a spike in reported cases of Post-Traumatic Stress among civilian New
Yorkers. Had the DEA been less Draconian in the "War on Drugs" during the
Reagan era, there could have been a viable treatment for these thousands of
people, many of whom may still be suffering.

Instead, by 2001, Ecstasy was known only as a troublesome "club drug," a
champion seller on the black market and the subject of thousands of
fearsome newspaper articles, some based on studies that have since proved
completely erroneous. (One government-funded study, for instance,
introduced the idea that repeated MDMA use could cause "holes" in the
brain. Turns out the author was injecting monkeys with methamphetamine --
the wrong substance altogether -- not MDMA).

In the FDA-approved trial in South Carolina, MDMA-assisted therapy sessions
- -- some of which have already occurred -- can last up to eight hours.
Patients receive a placebo or a 125mg dose of MDMA (a similar dose to what
can be found in some Ecstasy pills sold on the street) and then listen to
music while talking to a therapist. A doctor told London's Guardian
newspaper that the drug "appears to act as a catalyst to help people move
through whatever's been blocking their success in therapy."

Whether the study will also help publicize the more general idea that the
barriers put up between "good" and "bad" drugs are sometimes arbitrary --
as the recent recall of the widely used arthritis drug Vioxx shows --
remains to be seen. And without question, more research is needed on the
long term effects of MDMA on brain chemicals such as serotonin. Still, for
Ecstasy, the long path from "bad" to "good" seems to be clearing -- a
refreshing trend for America's former demon drug.