This actually sounds kind of crazy to me. But, I do know that marijuana might get PTSD patients to talk before they kill themselves or others. If you have studied psychology at all like I have you probably know it is called a Suicidal/homicidal state. So, if a person is capable of suicide they usually are also capable of homicide. In fact, serial killers are often people who want to commit suicide and are too afraid to kill themselves and so kill others instead.
PTSD is mostly about feeling guilty. Your mother and father didn't teach you to kill others. So, when you view hundreds or thousands of people being killed subconsciously many or most cannot deal with this and so become suicidal/ Homicidal which is where civilized people often go when dealing with the aftermaths of war.
However, it is also true sometimes that hallucinogenics like Ecstasy and others might put a person like this into a state where they see the whole universe as themselves and not feel separate from it. And from this state of consciousness they might be able to forgive themselves and others for what they have done. It's about having a different perspective than just feeling trapped in a human body. If you experience yourself as the whole universe, everyone is your family and you don't kill them. (except maybe in self defense under extreme conditions). However, if you experience yourself as the whole universe often you are intuitive in the extreme and know where not to be as well as where to be to be the most helpful to all beings and therefore you aren't going to experience things that would give you PTSD after you reach this state because you won't go places where bad things are happening naturally for a variety of reasons.
Therefore you become a boon and a help to all mankind in becoming thus enlightened.
CHARLESTON,
S.C. — After three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, C. J. Hardin wound up
hiding from the world in a backwoods cabin in North Carolina. Divorced,
alcoholic and at times suicidal, he had tried almost all the …
F.D.A. Agrees to New Trials for Ecstasy as Relief for PTSD Patients
Photo
C.J. Hardin, a veteran who
served three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, at a memorial in North
Charleston, S.C. He is a patient in the study of MDMA, also known as
Ecstasy, as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.Credit
Travis Dove for The New York Times
CHARLESTON,
S.C. — After three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, C. J. Hardin wound up
hiding from the world in a backwoods cabin in North Carolina. Divorced,
alcoholic and at times suicidal, he had tried almost all the accepted
treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder: psychotherapy, group therapy and nearly a dozen different medications.
“Nothing
worked for me, so I put aside the idea that I could get better,” said
Mr. Hardin, 37. “I just pretty much became a hermit in my cabin and
never went out.”
Then,
in 2013, he joined a small drug trial testing whether PTSD could be
treated with MDMA, the illegal party drug better known as Ecstasy.
“It
changed my life,” he said in a recent interview in the bright, airy
living room of the suburban ranch house here, where he now lives while
going to college and working as an airplane mechanic. “It allowed me to
see my trauma without fear or hesitation and finally process things and
move forward.”
Based
on promising results like Mr. Hardin’s, the Food and Drug
Administration gave permission Tuesday for large-scale, Phase 3 clinical
trials of the drug — a final step before the possible approval of
Ecstasy as a prescription drug.
If successful, the trials could turn an illicit street substance into a potent treatment for PTSD.
Through
a spokeswoman, the F.D.A. declined to comment, citing regulations that
prohibit disclosing information about drugs that are being developed.
“I’m
cautious but hopeful,” said Dr. Charles R. Marmar, the head of
psychiatry at New York University’s Langone School of Medicine, a
leading PTSD researcher who was not involved in the study. “If they can
keep getting good results, it will be of great use. PTSD can be very
hard to treat. Our best therapies right now don’t help 30 to 40 percent
of people. So we need more options.”
But
he expressed concern about the potential for abuse. “It’s a feel-good
drug and we know people are prone to abuse it,” he said. “Prolonged use
can lead to serious damage to the brain.”
The
Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a small
nonprofit created in 1985 to advocate the legal medical use of MDMA,
LSD, marijuana and other banned drugs, sponsored six Phase 2 studies
treating a total of 130 PTSD patients with the stimulant. It will also
fund the Phase 3 research, which will include at least 230 patients.
Two
trials here in Charleston focused on treating combat veterans, sexual
assault victims, and police and firefighters with PTSD who had not
responded to traditional prescription drugs or psychotherapy. Patients
had, on average, struggled with symptoms for 17 years.
Photo
Dr. Michael C. Mitheofer, a
psychiatrist, and his wife, Ann, at their office in Mount Pleasant, S.C.
They have studied the use of MDMA as a treatment for PTSD.Credit
Travis Dove for The New York Times
After
three doses of MDMA administered under a psychiatrist’s guidance, the
patients reported a 56 percent decrease of severity of symptoms on
average, one study found.
By the end of the study, two-thirds no longer met the criteria for
having PTSD. Follow-up examinations found that improvements lasted more
than a year after therapy.
“We
can sometimes see this kind of remarkable improvement in traditional
psychotherapy, but it takes years, if it happens at all,” said Dr.
Michael C. Mithoefer, the psychiatrist who conducted the trials here. “We think it works as a catalyst that speeds the natural healing process.”
The researchers
are so optimistic that they have applied for so-called breakthrough
therapy status with the Food and Drug Administration, which would speed
the approval process. If approved, the drug could be available by 2021.
Under
the researchers’ proposal for approval, the drug would be used a
limited number of times in the presence of trained psychotherapists as
part of a broader course of therapy. But even in those controlled
circumstances, some scientists worry that approval as a therapy could
encourage more illegal recreational use.
“It
sends the message that this drug will help you solve your problems,
when often it just creates problems,” said Andrew Parrott, a
psychologist at Swansea University in Wales who has studied the brains
of chronic Ecstasy users. “This is a messy drug we know can do damage.”
Allowing
doctors to administer the drug to treat a disorder, he warned, could
inadvertently lead to a wave of abuse similar to the current opioid
crisis.
During
initial studies, patients went through 12 weeks of psychotherapy,
including three eight-hour sessions in which they took MDMA. During the
sessions, they lay on a futon amid candles and fresh flowers, listening
to soothing music.
Dr.
Mithoefer and his wife, Ann Mithoefer, and often their portly terrier
mix, Flynn, sat with each patient, guiding them through traumatic
memories.
“The
medicine allows them to look at things from a different place and
reclassify them,” said Ms. Mithoefer, a psychiatric nurse. “Honestly, we
don’t have to do much. Each person has an innate ability to heal. We
just create the right conditions.”
Research
has shown that the drug causes the brain to release a flood of hormones
and neurotransmitters that evoke feelings of trust, love and
well-being, while also muting fear and negative emotional memories that
can be overpowering in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Patients say the drug gave them heightened clarity and ability to
address their problems.
For
years after his combat deployments, Mr. Hardin said he was sleepless
and on edge. His dreams were marked with explosions and death. The Army
gave him sleeping pills and antidepressants. When they didn’t work, he turned to alcohol and began withdrawing from the world.
Photo
Ed Thompson, a former
firefighter, with his children in Charleston, S.C. He took part in a
study of MDMA as a treatment for PTSD. Without the drug, “he’d be dead,”
his wife said.Credit
Travis Dove for The New York Times
“I
just felt hopeless and in the dark,” he said. “But the MDMA sessions
showed me a light I could move toward. Now I’m out of the darkness and
the world is all around me.”
Since the trial, he has gone back to school and remarried.
The chemist Alexander Shulgin
first realized the euphoria-inducing traits of MDMA in the 1970s, and
introduced it to psychologists he knew. Under the nickname Adam,
thousands of psychologists began to use it as an aid for therapy
sessions. Some researchers at the time thought the drug could be helpful
for anxiety disorders, including PTSD, but before formal clinical
trails could start, Adam spread to dance clubs and college campuses
under the name Ecstasy, and in 1986, the Drug Enforcement Administration
made it a Schedule 1 drug, barring all legal use.
Since
then, the number of people seeking treatment for PTSD has exploded and
psychiatry has struggled to keep pace. Two drugs approved for treating
the disorder worked only mildly better than placebos in trials. Current
psychotherapy approaches are often slow and many patients drop out when
they don’t see results. Studies have shown combat veterans are
particularly hard to treat.
In
interviews, study participants said MDMA therapy had not only helped
them with painful memories, but also had helped them stop abusing
alcohol and other drugs and put their lives back together.
On
a recent evening, Edward Thompson, a former firefighter, tucked his
twin 4-year-old girls into bed, turned on their night light, then joined
his wife at a backyard fire.
“If it weren’t for MDMA. … ” he said.
“He’d be dead,” his wife, Laura, finished.
They both nodded.
Years
of responding to gory accidents left Mr. Thompson, 30, in a near
constant state of panic that he had tried to numb with alcohol and
prescription opiates and benzodiazepines.
By
2015, efforts at therapy had failed, and so had several family
interventions. His wife had left with their children, and he was
considering jumping in front of a bus.
A
member of a conservative Anglican church, Mr. Thompson had never used
illegal drugs. But he was struggling with addiction from his
prescription drugs, so he at first rejected a suggestion by his
therapist that he enter the study.
“In the end, I was out of choices,” he said.
Three
sessions with the drug gave him the clarity, he said, to identify his
problems and begin to work through them. He does not wish to take the
drug again.
“It gave me my life back, but it wasn’t a party drug,” he said. “It was a lot of work.”
Correction: November 29, 2016
An earlier version of this article misstated the year that
the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies was founded.
It was 1985, not 1986.
No comments:
Post a Comment