A NICE LIE-DOWN AND DISCO BICKIES

Dancefloor drugs may have untapped medicinal benefits - such as helping
patients get the most out of therapy, writes David Adam.

In 1960 a psychology lecturer at Harvard University took a trip that
changed his life. In Mexico for a holiday, he swallowed some magic
mushrooms, triggering an interest in the psychological effects of
hallucinogenic drugs that would lead to him being sacked, arrested,
kidnapped and having seven grams of his mortal remains blasted into space
after he died.

The lecturer was Timothy Leary, better known in the 1960s as the drug guru
who urged America's youngsters to "turn on, tune in, drop out". Leary
believed hallucinogens could alter behaviour in unprecedented and
beneficial ways. In experiments at Harvard he doped graduate students with
psilocybin - the active compound in magic mushrooms - and LSD.

He argued that the results of his experiments could help to treat
alcoholics and reform criminals; but they enraged parents and unsettled
colleagues. Harvard sacked Leary in 1963 and the episode left an
embarrassing stain on the university's reputation.

Now, more than 40 years later, research using psychedelic drugs is
returning to Harvard. John Halpern, a psychiatrist at the university's
McLean Hospital, is set to study whether a compound called MDMA can help
ease anxiety in terminally ill cancer patients. MDMA - or to chemists
3,4-methylenedioxymethampheta-mine - is better known as the dancefloor drug
ecstasy.

The study reflects revived interest in the medicinal properties of
hallucinogenic or psychedelic drugs, loosely defined by their ability to
alter perception, cognition or mood.

Trials of MDMA for post-traumatic stress disorder are under way in the
United States, and psilocybin is being tested as a treatment for anxiety
and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

A team at the Orenda Institute in Baltimore is seeking permission to give
cancer sufferers LSD and a Russian group in St Petersburg is investigating
if heroin addicts can be helped by treatment with the psychedelic drug
ketamine, which is commonly used as a horse tranquilliser.

A small clinic in Peru is also treating drug addicts with a hallucinogen -
the native brew ayahuasca, which contains dimethyltryptamine or DMT, the
only psychedelic compound our bodies produce naturally.

There are even moves to reintroduce research on LSD at Harvard, where
Halpern wants to test its abilities to treat cluster headaches - severe
attacks that strike at the same time each day for weeks at a time.

"Drugs can be controlled but that doesn't stop them being useful," Halpern
says. "That's what doctors are supposed to focus on and that's what I'm
trying to do. The Leary connotations are understandable for a popular
culture that is still struggling to resolve what happened in the 1960s.
Let's face it, it was a huge fiasco back then, but Tim Leary was not a
physician and didn't come to this from a medical approach."

In Halpern's MDMA trial, 12 cancer patients with less than a year to live
will be given varying doses under controlled conditions and strict
supervision. The ecstasy is not a chemical fix for the patients' anxiety;
instead it is intended to help them open up and get the most from
conventional counselling.

"It's really tough doing psychotherapy with people who have anxiety
disorders because when you get to the heart of the matter it causes a panic
attack," Halpern says.

"MDMA may be potentially useful in that it doesn't induce that reaction. We
want to see if that can translate into decreased anxiety and meaningful
increases in the quality of life for these people."

The alternative, he says, is heavy doses of sedatives such as Valium.

Patients volunteering for the trial will receive up to 125 milligrams of
MDMA over two experimental sessions several hours apart - about the same or
a little more than in a typical ecstasy tablet. They will also receive more
conventional help during several non-drug sessions.

Rick Doblin, head of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic
Studies, which funds the Harvard research, says the study could bring one
step closer his goal of making MDMA a prescription medicine.

"It's going to be a hurdle but as we get pilot studies that show promise I
think it will get easier and easier to raise money for the research,"
Doblin says. "A lot of people think what we're trying to do is impossible
and so don't bother to help out."

His group is funding the world's only clinical trial of MDMA. At his South
Carolina clinic, the psychiatrist Michael Mithoefer has given the drug or a
placebo to victims of sexual abuse with post-traumatic stress disorder. The
trial began almost a year ago and five of a total of 20 patients have been
treated so far. After receiving official permission, Mithoefer is preparing
to extend the study to US soldiers traumatised by fighting in Iraq and
Afghanistan.

Each drug-assisted session lasts about eight hours, during which patients
lie down and music is played - though psychedelic classics such as the
Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band are out. "Because it has
lyrics," Doblin says. "Lyrics plant images into people's minds and we
really want people to be free to bring up their own content."

The research is controversial and government authorities have frequently
refused permission because of fears of legal action, experimental bias or,
in some cases, with no explanation at all.

Serious doubts over the long-term risks of MDMA remain: animal studies show
it can lower levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin.

"There is no risk-free strategy," Doblin says. "We're not trying to sell
what we're doing as the way to solve all the problems with drugs. You look
at the people who are taking MDMA for post-traumatic stress disorder and
you would say that's the opposite of ecstasy. They're crying and shaking.
They're not saying, 'Oh, I'm so happy and I love the guy who did this to me'."

The results of the South Carolina trial are expected next year. The next
stage would be two larger trials involving hundreds of people - one in the
US and the second probably in Israel or Spain, where smaller studies are
already planned. Halpern hopes to start his Harvard trial of MDMA with
cancer patients within months.

The Guardian