ECSTASY MAY JOIN FORCES

Dance-Floor Drug Would Be Used To Combat Stress Disorder: Top
Doc

OTTAWA - Canada's military would use the illicit dance-floor drug
Ecstasy to treat soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
if it's proven safe and effective, says a top DND doctor.

Lt. Col. Rakesh Jetly, a psychiatrist and senior health adviser for
the Canadian Forces, said the department of national defence (DND) is
committed to evidence-based care, and would embrace any treatment that
has undergone rigorous scientific research.

"If you replaced Ecstasy with substance X - whether it was an
absolutely approved legal drug, a mainstream medication, my answer
would be the same. The fact that it's Ecstasy means nothing to us,"
Jetly told QMI Agency.

"If there's any substance, any drug that has the research, the
randomized controlled studies, the publications to prove its efficacy,
we would entertain adding it."

A new study in the Journal of Psychopharmacology shows a small
clinical trial found 80% of chronic patients treated with
psychotherapy and MDMA- called Ecstasy on the street - no longer
showed signs of PTSD and had no serious side effects. Three patients
once so debilitated they couldn't work were able to return to their
jobs.

MDMA was used by psychiatrists and psychotherapists to aide treatment
before outlawed in the 1970s and 1980s.

Jetly said because all treatments endure tough scientific scrutiny and
robust risk assessments support before being approved by Health
Canada, he is not bothered that a potential remedy stems from a street
drug.

But Commodore Hans Jung, the CF Surgeon General, warned studies on
Ecstasy are in the very early stages and it would take years before it
might be ready for regulatory approval. Any soldiers suffering from
PTSD should seek professional care and never self-medicate or treat
themselves with any drug not proven to be safe, he said.

The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which
sponsored the Ecstasy pilot with subjects traumatized by war, crime
and abuse, is conducting a second focused trial with vets from
Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam. Other clinical trials are planned for
Canada, Switzerland and Jordan.

MAPS spokesman Randolph Hencken said the Health Canada-approved
Vancouver project was delayed due to "bureaucratic hurdles" moving the
Ecstasy across the border but is now expected to launch in the next
few months.