Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.
Speaker 1: Time to go into the vault. Now, this time we're
Speaker 1: going to check in with part two of the episode
Speaker 1: that you did with Christian about m d m A
Speaker 1: way back in December. That's right. Uh, yeah, we figured
Speaker 1: since we did those psychedelic episodes, made sense to re
Speaker 1: air these m d m A episodes. Again, these are
Speaker 1: from so you know, they're a few years old, and
Speaker 1: the research into m d M A and its potential
Speaker 1: therapeutic uses has continued, so these do not reflect like
Speaker 1: the cutting edge of the research by any means. Uh.
Speaker 1: And likewise, you know, we've we've re aired, We've re
Speaker 1: aired a number of episodes featuring Christian. I just want
Speaker 1: to remind everybody that Christian is alive and well in
Speaker 1: the world, and you want to check out his his
Speaker 1: ongoing podcasting adventures. He is still very much the co
Speaker 1: host of super Context, which is like a pop culture autopsy.
Speaker 1: I believe they describe it as such. Yeah, definitely worth
Speaker 1: checking out. All right, Well, let's venture once more into
Speaker 1: the vault. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from
Speaker 1: how Stop works dot com. Hey, wasn't discussed tobow your mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Christian Sager. So
Speaker 1: we are in part two of our M d M
Speaker 1: A Spectacular, and the last episode we talked primarily about
Speaker 1: what m d M A is, when it was invented,
Speaker 1: who invented it, and what its physical effects on the
Speaker 1: body are, right UH. And so if you haven't listened
Speaker 1: to that and you want a little bit more background,
Speaker 1: I recommend that you go back and listen to it.
Speaker 1: But what we're gonna focus on here today is primarily
Speaker 1: how it's being used in studies, or how it's been
Speaker 1: used really for the last thirty or forty years UH
Speaker 1: in studies on how to treat people for various things,
Speaker 1: from everything from mental problems to PTSD to answer yeah
Speaker 1: and UH. As As we set up in the last episode,
Speaker 1: you're basically dealing with two different phases, right. So the
Speaker 1: substances UH is first synthesized in the early twentieth century.
Speaker 1: It's not until UH generally the what the sixties, seventies
Speaker 1: and eighties that you see it used therapeutically. You see
Speaker 1: people experimenting with its uh, the potential potential benefits outside
Speaker 1: of a recreational environment. But then it becomes enemy number one, right,
Speaker 1: it becomes caught up in the culture. Last episode, it
Speaker 1: was immediately placed on like the most restrictive drug list,
Speaker 1: so scientists couldn't even use it in their labs to
Speaker 1: study its. And this goes for various psychedelics as well,
Speaker 1: such as a psilocybin. But then in recent years we've
Speaker 1: seen a resurgence. You've seen You've seen psilocybin, you've seen
Speaker 1: m D M A, all these substance coming back into
Speaker 1: the lab and uh and and professionals are able to
Speaker 1: actually explore them some more, look at these undeniably potent,
Speaker 1: powerful substances and say what what he or can we use?
Speaker 1: What can we change? What? What can we just try
Speaker 1: to to use in a proper environment and and out
Speaker 1: of it all generate some sort of positive effect. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so before we get into the real, you know,
Speaker 1: boiled down details about this, I want to remind everybody
Speaker 1: that the podcast isn't the only way that you can,
Speaker 1: you know, interact with us or see the things that
Speaker 1: we're looking at this week. We also are always writing
Speaker 1: on stuff to blow your Mind dot com. There's galleries,
Speaker 1: there's articles. At least once or twice a week we're
Speaker 1: putting stuff up there, and videos as well. So there's
Speaker 1: all the old stuff to blow your own videos. But Robert,
Speaker 1: for instance, is currently working on the How Stuff Works
Speaker 1: Now series and as much as possible, we try to
Speaker 1: share those videos as well. Uh, and they're very stuff
Speaker 1: to blow your mind related topics, right, yeah, yeah, very
Speaker 1: much weird science that sort of thing. And hey, uh,
Speaker 1: I know a lot of you listen to us on
Speaker 1: various aggregated programs, various apps and whatnot, but but there
Speaker 1: are certainly iTunes users out there getting us on iTunes
Speaker 1: and listen us to listening to us on your iPhones.
Speaker 1: If you get us through iTunes, show some love their
Speaker 1: help the algorithm and that's a great way to support
Speaker 1: the show without spending a dime. So all right, let's
Speaker 1: get into the pharmacological healing properties of m d M
Speaker 1: A and this brings us back to Shulgun. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: Alexander Shulgan, who we talked a lot about in the
Speaker 1: last episode, also known as Sasha Shulgin, the Godfather of Ecstasy, uh,
Speaker 1: was also primarily responsible for bringing to the psychological community.
Speaker 1: Uh In in particular um his wife Anne. My understanding
Speaker 1: was that she was a therapist and she used m
Speaker 1: d m A and some of her therapy sessions with
Speaker 1: her patients. But he also uh introduced it to a
Speaker 1: guy named Leo zef in N seven who started using
Speaker 1: it in psychotherapy and introduced other therapists to it. And
Speaker 1: so my understanding is that there is this kind of
Speaker 1: underground network of therapists who were using it in their
Speaker 1: research and in their studies. And this is before it
Speaker 1: was tremendously legal. Yes, obviously it's one of the areas
Speaker 1: you see mentioned a lot. Is it's used in couples
Speaker 1: therapy because ultimately, as as we try to drive home
Speaker 1: in the last episode, this idea that m d m
Speaker 1: A and ecstasy produce, this feeling of ecstasy is is
Speaker 1: a buitiness leading it's more empathy and sympathy. It's more
Speaker 1: a feeling of openness. Again, I like to think of
Speaker 1: it as the self becomes permeable to the world and
Speaker 1: so it's able to improve emotional communication skills. So that
Speaker 1: was and boost empathy. So this is where psychotherapist would
Speaker 1: use it to say you have two individuals that they're
Speaker 1: having marital problems, they're having communication problems, they have all
Speaker 1: this stuff bottle up inside. Well than in these cases,
Speaker 1: perhaps m d m A can be used to open
Speaker 1: the two up, to get them to talk about things
Speaker 1: that they're not talking about. So it's not a situation
Speaker 1: where like you having marital problems, take two of these
Speaker 1: and commy in the morning. It's like, let's let's have
Speaker 1: a rap session and let's take this. You will take
Speaker 1: this first, and this will enable the sort of open
Speaker 1: communication we need. Yeah, I can't emphasize this enough. For
Speaker 1: all of these psychotherapeutic uses that we're talking about here,
Speaker 1: they have to go hand in hand with actual sit
Speaker 1: down in the chair, talk to a therapist counseling. Right. Definitely,
Speaker 1: it's not like you just take the m d m
Speaker 1: A and call them in the morning. Right, Like as
Speaker 1: we just said, it's it's got to be in conjunction
Speaker 1: with building trust with somebody that you can talk to
Speaker 1: objectively about whatever the issues. It's the m d m
Speaker 1: A assisted psychotherapy, not psychotherapy assisted m d m A usage.
Speaker 1: And and we'll get into this more, especially with the
Speaker 1: PTSD stuff, but basically what it does The argument is
Speaker 1: is that it allows you to increase your trust for
Speaker 1: people if you have trouble trusting people, and it reduces
Speaker 1: your fear and anxiety levels. So it's particularly good as
Speaker 1: I you know, as you just mentioned, for something like
Speaker 1: couples therapy where there's communication issues, if you have fear
Speaker 1: of not communicating something or you need to trust your
Speaker 1: partner more. That that's where the ideal lies in its usage. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was being used as early as the seventies, and
Speaker 1: you know, probably up until the mid eighties, right around
Speaker 1: the time that it was made illegal in the United States. Uh,
Speaker 1: but you know that that was primarily like an underground thing.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like it wasn't like a man dated. It
Speaker 1: wasn't like in the D S M for whatever came
Speaker 1: out in the seventies, right, and so, uh, it wasn't
Speaker 1: until a more modern time, really, right around the two thousands,
Speaker 1: I want to say, where we started seeing M d
Speaker 1: M A show up again in psychotherapy trials. That's right.
Speaker 1: And though the primary player here is an organization known
Speaker 1: as MAPS that's Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, and they're
Speaker 1: they're concerned not just with M d m A but
Speaker 1: with psilocybe and other substances. Um, And they continue to
Speaker 1: explore quote whether m d m A assisted psychotherapy can
Speaker 1: help heal the psychological and emotional damage caused by sexual assault, war,
Speaker 1: violent crime, and other traumas. So this is this is
Speaker 1: one of the huge areas of exploration here. And oh
Speaker 1: and just to give a little more background on maps, um,
Speaker 1: they're it's a. It's They are operating in several different
Speaker 1: countries I think five right now, Canada, Israel, Spain, Switzerland, Israel,
Speaker 1: and in the US. Yeah, there are trials being done
Speaker 1: in the US. And I think I mentioned this at
Speaker 1: the end of last episode, but it bears repeating here.
Speaker 1: It is super expensive to research system. Not only because
Speaker 1: of all of the restrictions that have to be placed
Speaker 1: on the facilities in which you are holding the m
Speaker 1: d m A for these trials, right, Like you have
Speaker 1: to build like like super like heavy door frames, right
Speaker 1: or like security systems that you normally wouldn't have for
Speaker 1: these places. But the medical grade m d m A
Speaker 1: is also quite expensive. It can cost up to a
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy dollars or seventy five dollars per dose.
Speaker 1: So and that's like, as we were saying last episode,
Speaker 1: one dose is like a hundred, two hundred and fifty milligrams. Yeah. Again,
Speaker 1: think back to the fact that one of the reasons
Speaker 1: that it was shell for so long is that it
Speaker 1: was expensive to study. So even in the you know,
Speaker 1: the early twentieth century German chemisicists looked at it and uh,
Speaker 1: and they realized, oh, it has some sort of interesting properties,
Speaker 1: but who has the budget to explore it? So before
Speaker 1: we dive deeper down to the psychotherapy thing, I think
Speaker 1: an interesting way to approach this is to add the
Speaker 1: criticisms up first, so then as we go through it,
Speaker 1: we can sort of say, okay, we're those criticisms valid
Speaker 1: or not. Uh. And in the research, one of the
Speaker 1: major M d M A researchers who's published a lot
Speaker 1: of literature on this is a guy named Andy Parrott,
Speaker 1: who's i believe, out of the University of Swansea, and he,
Speaker 1: you know, has done a great paper that's on sort
Speaker 1: of just the the general twenty five years of empirical
Speaker 1: history of chemistry, right that the chemistry behind M d
Speaker 1: M A UM. But he does acknowledge that there's been
Speaker 1: some criticism U and mainly that it's not safe for
Speaker 1: clinical use. Uh. And some proponents say that it needs
Speaker 1: to be used repeatedly for more than one or two
Speaker 1: sessions or otherwise it won't produce gains in those situations, right. Uh.
Speaker 1: And remember from the last episode, m d M AS
Speaker 1: effects are short lived, and uh, it doesn't exactly work
Speaker 1: like that. You know, as we said before, there's a
Speaker 1: chronic decline over time. The more you use it, the
Speaker 1: less positive effects are and the more the negative effects are.
Speaker 1: So there's some concern about that with the tolerance levels.
Speaker 1: But there's also acute effects of m d M A
Speaker 1: that are unpredictable, which we talked about as well last time.
Speaker 1: They can both be positive or negative, right like that,
Speaker 1: for instance, that there's both positive and negative emotional responses,
Speaker 1: or or that there's some undesirable experiences during the sessions,
Speaker 1: and sometimes these undesirable experiences can last up to two
Speaker 1: weeks long. So that's kind of parrots argument is, you know,
Speaker 1: let's let's stop before we do this. But Uh, there's
Speaker 1: also the idea of the neuro chemical depletion the serotonin
Speaker 1: uh and can lead to feelings of depression, anger, and
Speaker 1: paranoia anyways. Uh, and it's especially bad for those who
Speaker 1: have pre existing depression, and it could even predispose people
Speaker 1: who like, for instance, we're already depressed but had um
Speaker 1: you know, dealt with that issue, to a recurrence of
Speaker 1: their previous psychological disability. So these are all of his
Speaker 1: essential like criticisms of I don't know that we're quite
Speaker 1: there yet for the psychotherapy thing. And he presents us
Speaker 1: with two scenarios in which he thinks that that this
Speaker 1: isn't going to particularly work out. And I'll read through
Speaker 1: the first one and we can respond to these as
Speaker 1: we go through the benefits of the psychotherapy and see
Speaker 1: if see if his criticisms are right. Yeah. So if
Speaker 1: we don't launch into picking them apart right away, understand it.
Speaker 1: That's the reason. Yeah, Okay, So parents, first scenario is
Speaker 1: that you have a Special Air Force soldier who's discharged
Speaker 1: from the army because he has PTSD is traumatic stress disorder.
Speaker 1: His therapist says, let's try this m d M A
Speaker 1: assisted therapy. Oh, but the drug stimulates the re emergence
Speaker 1: of the soldier's unpleasant war experiences, and this includes feelings
Speaker 1: of aggression. The soldiers trying to control these while he's
Speaker 1: at the clinic. However, later that evening, this is the scenario,
Speaker 1: mind you, he violently attacks a stranger in the street.
Speaker 1: Following his arrest, his lawyer argues that this aggressive act
Speaker 1: has been triggered by the m d m A assisted
Speaker 1: therapy session. So okay, so so sorry. Parrot is basically saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: this guy could potentially go out and assault somebody due
Speaker 1: to the negative feelings that get dredged up by this
Speaker 1: therapy induced m d m A session. Okay, I have
Speaker 1: so many responses to that. I'm gonna clear for a minute,
Speaker 1: all right. The second scenario that he lays up is
Speaker 1: called involves a hypothetical case of a female rape victim. Uh.
Speaker 1: He says. After the first m DUMA assisted therapy session,
Speaker 1: the client feels much better, but the games do not
Speaker 1: injure over time. Following a second session this m d
Speaker 1: m A assisted again, there's a brief period of of relief,
Speaker 1: and then a third session is requested, but the therapist
Speaker 1: explains that she can't clinically recommend it to the client.
Speaker 1: Now Quote seeks out their own illicit supplies that ecstasy
Speaker 1: slash m d M A. The only time she feels
Speaker 1: good is when she is on m d m A,
Speaker 1: and she becomes an habitual user. However, with reducing efficiency
Speaker 1: and increasing midweek blues, her chronic anxiety, depression, and low
Speaker 1: self esteem steadily worsens. M M Yeah, so I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, that seems counterintuitive even in and of itself, right,
Speaker 1: and the idea that this person would become a habitual
Speaker 1: user given what we know from Parrot's own discourse about
Speaker 1: m d M A and that most people don't use
Speaker 1: it more than ten times. Everything we discussed in the
Speaker 1: first episode seems to to poke holes in that argument
Speaker 1: and a lot of the research for that game in
Speaker 1: Parrot's own writing. So I'm not quite sure about this,
Speaker 1: but let's let's see if it matches up as we
Speaker 1: go along. Okay, Now, this is the thing that ties
Speaker 1: into a criticism of scenario one, but also just important
Speaker 1: to to look at going forward is that when it
Speaker 1: comes to the treatment of PTSD, there is and there
Speaker 1: is an urgent need for better treatment methods. So this
Speaker 1: is just this isn't just a situation of a bunch
Speaker 1: of scientists or even an organization saying hey, we've got
Speaker 1: to find a way to make m d M a
Speaker 1: practical This is not what you Harrelson wearing a jacket around, right.
Speaker 1: This is this is there a professional saying, hey, we
Speaker 1: need a better tool here, we need a better methods,
Speaker 1: and we need need better drugs to help these individuals.
Speaker 1: There's a potential answer here, let's explore it. So to
Speaker 1: piggyback on top of that, I think it's important that
Speaker 1: we sort of just quickly prime and established what PTSD is, right, Like,
Speaker 1: it's a term a lot of us throw around, and
Speaker 1: I've heard people say before like, oh, I have PTSD,
Speaker 1: you know, And Uh, this is what PTSD is. Uh,
Speaker 1: is a manifestation of trauma physically in your body. It's
Speaker 1: common in victims of war and abut it involves shaking, sweating, crumbling,
Speaker 1: anxiety and flashbacks. And basically what we're looking at here
Speaker 1: is the psychological scars having physical repercussions. Right, So they're
Speaker 1: physically affecting a person's body. So that's what we're talking
Speaker 1: about here for treatment is being able to get get
Speaker 1: them to integrate past that physical trauma rather mental trauma
Speaker 1: manifesting physically. So here a couple of quick points that
Speaker 1: come directly from MAPS about m d m A assisted psychotherapy,
Speaker 1: they said. They say an Indie May assisted psychotherapy INDIEMA
Speaker 1: is only administered a few times, unlike most medications for
Speaker 1: mental illnesses, which are often taken daily for years and
Speaker 1: sometimes forever. UH and MAPS is undertaking a roughly twenty
Speaker 1: million dollar plan to make m d m A into
Speaker 1: a Food and Drug Administration approved prescription medicine by one
Speaker 1: now Here are just a few up pointers as well
Speaker 1: that come from Ingrid Pacy, who I mentioned earlier. There's
Speaker 1: a fabulous bit with her on the CBC radio show
Speaker 1: Ideas again their three part series A High Culture, which
Speaker 1: I highly recommend for anyone who's interested in just the
Speaker 1: overall uh re emergence of psychedelic research over the past
Speaker 1: a few decades and in some of the you know,
Speaker 1: the the the concerns they're in. But Ingrid Percy is
Speaker 1: a psychiatrist. She's a lead investigator of mb m A
Speaker 1: assisted therapy for treatment resistant post traumatic stress disorder at
Speaker 1: the University of British Columbia. So she points out that
Speaker 1: from phase one studies around the world, we know that
Speaker 1: m d m A seems to lower fear, particularly for
Speaker 1: treatment resistant PTSD creating a window. And it's interesting she
Speaker 1: says window because because references a window at that I
Speaker 1: believe was the hundred milogram YEA creates a window during
Speaker 1: which the trauma can be considered and discussed without the
Speaker 1: associated fear getting in the way. So it's about sort
Speaker 1: of allowing the monster to come out so you can
Speaker 1: look at it and deal with it and and and
Speaker 1: perhaps exercise it. Right. According to pascy M d m A,
Speaker 1: psychotherapy usually begins with feelings of relaxation, easing of muscles,
Speaker 1: and among PTSD patients you often see the flashes of
Speaker 1: the past trauma that then emerge and it can even
Speaker 1: be a strong bodily experience. So we mentioned this in
Speaker 1: the last episode about how how taking ecstasy can produce uh,
Speaker 1: these very strong negative feelings can can pull those out
Speaker 1: of an interce. So that's where I assume Parrot is
Speaker 1: getting his scenario to of which the soldier has experienced
Speaker 1: such a negative emotions being recalled. Yeah, and that but
Speaker 1: that what where I can't I'm having difficulty following him
Speaker 1: is the logical extension of that to going out and
Speaker 1: assaulting a person on the street, right, because he's saying, well,
Speaker 1: you're gonna pull You're gonna pull the monster out of
Speaker 1: the closet, and then the monster could win. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: but part of what are you gonna do? Just leave
Speaker 1: it in the closet. I mean, the idea here is
Speaker 1: we've got to we've got to face these traumatic experiences, right,
Speaker 1: and that m D MAY assisted psychotherapy can potentially allow
Speaker 1: us to do so in a safer way with reduced
Speaker 1: fear um and and during all of this, the therapist
Speaker 1: or monitoring vital signs. Umah. Really, it's kind of the
Speaker 1: best case scenario to be doing m d m A
Speaker 1: in right, because you're not like, like we talked about
Speaker 1: last episode, like the some of the bad side effects
Speaker 1: like the overheating or the chewing on your teeth. They're
Speaker 1: running about music. Yeah, all of that kind of stems
Speaker 1: out of the dance culture, not because of the drug,
Speaker 1: but because of the environment that you're in. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So you know this is again it's about using it
Speaker 1: therapeutically with a therapist, using it as a way to
Speaker 1: open that window, to to gain access to things that
Speaker 1: are normally going to be too too buried or or
Speaker 1: to fear ridden to tackle and this is this is
Speaker 1: really key here. Again. One of the major issues is
Speaker 1: that there we need better tools, we need better medications
Speaker 1: to treat PTSD. And according to two percy um you
Speaker 1: see about a thirty success rate for conventional multi year
Speaker 1: PTSD therapy, but so far with m d m A
Speaker 1: PTSD therapy you've seen they've seen an eight five percent
Speaker 1: success rate. Wow, okay, well that backs up some of
Speaker 1: the other stuff that I read, which said that there
Speaker 1: were significant gains found on There's a there's a scale
Speaker 1: that's used to measure somebody's level of PTSD. It's called
Speaker 1: the PTSD scale. And after using that, after using m
Speaker 1: d m A in therapy, using the PTSD scale, they
Speaker 1: found that there were great gains over time. And in fact,
Speaker 1: when they did placebo trials telling people that they were
Speaker 1: doing m d m A when they weren't, they found
Speaker 1: less games. So the the evidence does seem to show
Speaker 1: that this works. Um it also, you know, the aim
Speaker 1: here is is to help these people with their debilitate symptoms.
Speaker 1: It's it's when they haven't responded to other therapies, and
Speaker 1: it's this isn't like oh, let's just try this, you know,
Speaker 1: this is this is a situation where it's resistant to
Speaker 1: their last resort. Yeah. Uh, you know. The other treatments
Speaker 1: are anything from talking, to exposure therapy, to the things
Speaker 1: that cause the PTSD to all these daily medications that
Speaker 1: we could be using. Uh. One therapist says that they
Speaker 1: think that it works because of m d M as
Speaker 1: unique properties. And we talked about this last time. It's
Speaker 1: both a stimulant and a psychedelic, right, so they said, quote,
Speaker 1: the stimulant gives people confidence and the psychedelic allows people
Speaker 1: to reflect on themselves and their experiences in a different way.
Speaker 1: This combination helps them confront painful memories. And then in
Speaker 1: two thousand nine there was an article by a Norwegian
Speaker 1: psychologist named I Believe this is palurine Yo Hansen, and
Speaker 1: he argued that it works through several mechanisms. Basically, the
Speaker 1: m d M A is increasing the levels of oxytocin
Speaker 1: in your body. And this is the call it the
Speaker 1: cuddle chemical. Um. I think you guys might have talked
Speaker 1: about this previously on the episode It's released during breastfeeding,
Speaker 1: not in the episode on the show and stuff to
Speaker 1: blow Your Left at five years one of yeah, the
Speaker 1: most frequently mentioned uh, properties of the body. I feel,
Speaker 1: So it increases our oxytocin and what that does it
Speaker 1: prevents the brain's emotional processing center from overpowering our higher thoughts,
Speaker 1: so it quells fear and it encourages trust, just like
Speaker 1: we were talking about earlier. So, um, you know we
Speaker 1: mentioned m d m A has to occur in conjunction
Speaker 1: with psychotherapy. You aren't just taking m d m A.
Speaker 1: And it's not like you immediately go into therapy and
Speaker 1: you're taking m d m A with the therapist. You
Speaker 1: need to establish trust with this therapist through a series
Speaker 1: of sober sessions before you do these m d m
Speaker 1: A sessions. And usually at the most I think it's
Speaker 1: like three sessions, which kind of makes sense along the
Speaker 1: lines of what we know about people taking m d
Speaker 1: m A, its effects and their efficacy. But then also,
Speaker 1: you know the uh contradicts. I want to say, parents
Speaker 1: first example of of the potential UH subject where this
Speaker 1: wouldn't work for them, right, and that they've become sorry
Speaker 1: it was their second example where the girl becomes an addict, right, Um,
Speaker 1: so they only use it for three sessions at the most.
Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna take a quick break and we
Speaker 1: come back. We're gonna we're gonna roll through some other
Speaker 1: potential uses. M d m A as a cancer fighting agent.
Speaker 1: Uh is potential uh aid in couples therapy and even
Speaker 1: away to ease an individual uh to the death point.
Speaker 1: All right, we're back. So we set up for this
Speaker 1: a little bit in the in the previous episode. The
Speaker 1: potential for for e m d M A to help
Speaker 1: us fight cancer, which is this is one of the
Speaker 1: this is an area of m d m A research
Speaker 1: that is uh. He kind of stands up part from
Speaker 1: the rest because it's so it's not attached to the
Speaker 1: most apparent properties of the drug. Right. In fact, So
Speaker 1: the funny story, yesterday I was getting my hair cut
Speaker 1: and as the first time I was getting my haircut
Speaker 1: by this particular hairdresser. She asked me what I did
Speaker 1: for a living and what I was working on right now,
Speaker 1: and I told her was researching empty m A uh
Speaker 1: and and she said, oh, that's fascinating, And I said
Speaker 1: it can be used to help people with cancer. And
Speaker 1: her immediate thought was, oh, yeah, that makes sense, like
Speaker 1: if they're in pain, it would make them feel happy.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh no, I mean yes, there
Speaker 1: are instances where they've been using it therapeutically that way.
Speaker 1: But no, like let's recap from last episode, there's that
Speaker 1: apotosis effect in which programs cell death actually attacks the
Speaker 1: cells in your liver and retina when you take M
Speaker 1: d M A. H. So let's remember that that's what
Speaker 1: they're using here to try to take take cancer out there,
Speaker 1: trying to kill the cells and cancer. It's not just
Speaker 1: as like a you know, sort of like a pain
Speaker 1: reducer kind of thing. Yeah, So we've known since around
Speaker 1: two thousand six that ecstasy, M D M A and
Speaker 1: antidepressants such as prozac have the potential to stop cancer
Speaker 1: cells the catches. Then, in order to kill the cells,
Speaker 1: who have to drop an absurd amount of ecstasy as
Speaker 1: in a highly lethal dose. Um. Like just to refresh,
Speaker 1: we were talking in the previous episode about how you're
Speaker 1: talking about, uh, the average dose being in in then
Speaker 1: like a hundred hundred and fifty, right, and if you
Speaker 1: get into one or one point five grams, you're getting
Speaker 1: into into a deadly amount, potentially deadly amount. So in
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, researchers from the University of Birmingham and
Speaker 1: the University of Western Australia UM looked into this. They
Speaker 1: were they were basically looking to ways at ways to
Speaker 1: tweak ecstasy, uh, to tweak m d m A at
Speaker 1: the atomic level, swapping out some of the atoms in
Speaker 1: its chemical composition to increase its cancer fighting power by
Speaker 1: a factor of a hundred. So to put that in perspective,
Speaker 1: that means that you could have a single tablet of
Speaker 1: modified ecstasy, they would have as much cancer fighting power
Speaker 1: as a hundred tablets without boosting the unwanted effects of
Speaker 1: the drug. So because because the amount of this is
Speaker 1: my understanding, the amount of m d m A needed
Speaker 1: to start attacking the cancer cells is like a hundred grams, right,
Speaker 1: and so to that would totally kill you. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's like a hundred times as much as would be
Speaker 1: a hundred times a very strong dosage. Yeah, So they
Speaker 1: need to make it more powerful so you can take
Speaker 1: less of it to attack the cancer but not have
Speaker 1: the negative side. Yeah. So basically taking the synthetic substance
Speaker 1: and tweaking it even more to encourage the properties you
Speaker 1: need and discourage the properties that are going to kill
Speaker 1: the patient. And this is exactly the kind of thing
Speaker 1: that Alexander Shulgin would have promoted and wanted I think
Speaker 1: his his his studies of these psychedelic compounds to be
Speaker 1: used for going forward, you know. I mean his hope
Speaker 1: was that they would be studied educationally so that we
Speaker 1: could find these kinds of uses for the Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: to go back to the roadmap scenario, it's saying, hey,
Speaker 1: there's this road and uh, you didn't know it, but
Speaker 1: there's a little turn here to the left, and it
Speaker 1: leads to a potential cure for cancer. So when you
Speaker 1: get into exactly how this works, uh, you really get
Speaker 1: bogged down rather quickly in the chemical and biochemical details.
Speaker 1: But the basic explanation, as rolled out in that paper
Speaker 1: is the theory behind it is the drug is attracted
Speaker 1: to the fat in the membranes of cancerous cells, and
Speaker 1: it makes the cells quote a bit more soapy, which
Speaker 1: can break down the membrane and kill the cell. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: cancerous cells are more susceptible. So again they hope to
Speaker 1: hope to refine this. Last the most recent stat I
Speaker 1: saw was they're hoping to make it possible by But
Speaker 1: again that was that that that was when they were
Speaker 1: rolling up that particular it said they thought they're about
Speaker 1: a decade away. I'm curious where they're at with it
Speaker 1: right now as Yeah, hopefully we'll get an update in
Speaker 1: the near future. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if we
Speaker 1: see something come out in the next year or so. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, So, all right, we've covered PTSD cancer. What
Speaker 1: else can we use this for. Well, we already mentioned
Speaker 1: couples therapy and about how it was rolled out with
Speaker 1: apparently some level of success in the eighties, But there's
Speaker 1: actually a two thousand fifteen study that was published in
Speaker 1: the Journal of Psychopharmacology, and they set out to examine
Speaker 1: how m d m A might be used to improve
Speaker 1: communication about a spouse in therapy. So this is interesting.
Speaker 1: It seems to be the key key here. That's not
Speaker 1: about as much about oh here, you both take MDMAIN
Speaker 1: will also together, but it's about getting an individual to
Speaker 1: share their own feelings and open up about what's bothering them.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I could imagine based on the stereotypes surrounding
Speaker 1: m d m A again, people hearing this and going
Speaker 1: oh okay, so they take ecstasy and it makes them
Speaker 1: want to have X, which was subsequently or they want
Speaker 1: to love each other, they feel more open, they feel
Speaker 1: more sympathetic. That's not again, ecstasy is a misnomer. Uh.
Speaker 1: And this isn't all sexual. This is more about communication. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, I I do have to say that,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's it's totally believable that you would
Speaker 1: have two individuals who have a connection with each other
Speaker 1: while they're on m d m A and then afterwards
Speaker 1: they realize, well, as my normal self even with the
Speaker 1: inside of what I had conversing with this individual, I
Speaker 1: no longer feel that connection. But again, this entails a
Speaker 1: therapist being present and using the information that you bring forth.
Speaker 1: So yeah, right, we don't recommend that like couples just
Speaker 1: do this in their kitchen together. Yeah, certainly not the kitchen.
Speaker 1: Um So, so we've discussed m DMA's ability to increase sociability.
Speaker 1: The drug alter speech production and fluency as well, and
Speaker 1: according to the study, it may influence speech content. So
Speaker 1: what they did is they rounded up thirty five healthy
Speaker 1: individuals with prior in d m A experience UH completed
Speaker 1: UM to session with UH within subjects double blind study
Speaker 1: during which they received one point five milligrams of oral
Speaker 1: m d M A and they also had a tiney
Speaker 1: that's a very small amount one point five that is,
Speaker 1: so then they would after the substance had taken hold
Speaker 1: um whatever limited hold it would have given the dosage.
Speaker 1: They engaged in five minute standardized talking tasks during which
Speaker 1: they discussed a close personal relationship, and they found that
Speaker 1: both analytic methods that they employed revealed that m d
Speaker 1: m A altered speech content relative to pulci abou. The
Speaker 1: drug increased use of social and sexual words, consistent with
Speaker 1: reports that m d m A increases willingness to disclose. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that lines up with what we know from the
Speaker 1: PTSD thing, right, It makes me trust people, it makes you,
Speaker 1: you know, you're more permeable, yourself is more permeable. And
Speaker 1: using the machine learning algorithm that receichers, researchers found that
Speaker 1: m d m A increased use of social words and
Speaker 1: words relating to both positive and negative emotions. So, in
Speaker 1: other words, it helped them open up about how they
Speaker 1: felt about this other individual, what the problems might be.
Speaker 1: And and and that is why it seems like it could
Speaker 1: be very useful in indima assisted psychotherapy. So I guess
Speaker 1: like the big problem here though, is how illegal it
Speaker 1: still is, and that it's really difficult to conduct trials
Speaker 1: like this, especially in a place like the United States. Right. So,
Speaker 1: but some of the articles that I was reading about
Speaker 1: both the PTSD thing and the cancer studies were saying
Speaker 1: that they think that that there's going to be m
Speaker 1: d m A approved by the f d A, the
Speaker 1: Federal Drug Administration again, like maybe in the next ten
Speaker 1: years or so. Yeah, and it seems like the same
Speaker 1: prognosis with Canadian law. This is just me here, but
Speaker 1: my my worry here is that what happens when this
Speaker 1: gets beyond peer reviewed publications, science journalism and and you know,
Speaker 1: and radio programs and podcast What happens when this becomes
Speaker 1: a political football and we have individuals saying, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you're about to allow our psychotherapists to start giving ecstasy
Speaker 1: to people. What happens? Then? It kind of reminds me
Speaker 1: of another stuff to blow your mind related thing, when
Speaker 1: you did that video last week about the god helmet,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of response on social media when
Speaker 1: we posted that video. I got the impression that a
Speaker 1: lot of people just read the headline and didn't watch
Speaker 1: the video, but they were basically I give a primer
Speaker 1: on what the god helmet is. Well, this was basically
Speaker 1: we're talking about cranial electromagnetic stimulation affecting various portions of
Speaker 1: the brain. If very basically turning things in your brain
Speaker 1: on and off in order to see how they affect.
Speaker 1: Electrical stimulation, slide electrical stimulation to see how it affects
Speaker 1: your experience of reality. Right, And uh, there was some
Speaker 1: research involving this that's saying that you know, by changing
Speaker 1: the way that you perceive reality, it might be able
Speaker 1: to help people overcome racism, for instance, right. Uh. And
Speaker 1: both the responses to that on our our social media channels,
Speaker 1: a lot of people were very angry because they saw
Speaker 1: that as kind of like mind control, right, almost like
Speaker 1: in a fascist kind of sense. So I could see
Speaker 1: the same thing happening with M D m A. Right,
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, these these therapists, you know, they're the
Speaker 1: activist therapists are going to try to reprogram our brains,
Speaker 1: so we're just like them. Well, I mean the thing
Speaker 1: is that both of these situations, whether you're talking about
Speaker 1: you know, electrical stimulation of the brain or pharmacological stimulation
Speaker 1: of the brain, you're dealing with a psychedelic effect. You know,
Speaker 1: you're you're taking your normal consciousness experience and you're tweaking
Speaker 1: it a bit, you're changing it. You're changing your perception
Speaker 1: of self, uh and reality in at least a very
Speaker 1: limited way. And that that can be frightening, that can
Speaker 1: be illuminating, And that's that's the whole that's psychedelia as
Speaker 1: a whole door for a lot of experiences and a
Speaker 1: lot of emotion. Think of it like sort of along
Speaker 1: the lines of um drawings. Okay, so let's say like
Speaker 1: you're looking at a drawing, and if you know what
Speaker 1: one point perspective is, it's kind of how Wes Anderson
Speaker 1: shoots a lot of his movies, right, Like, you've got
Speaker 1: a center point and everything stems out of that center
Speaker 1: point coming at you. But then you can switch to
Speaker 1: two point perspective or three point perspective, where you're looking
Speaker 1: at multiple angles, or you're looking up or down from
Speaker 1: like a skyscraper or something like that, right, And that's
Speaker 1: like a very basic metaphor for what's going on here.
Speaker 1: It's just changing the perspective with which you can look
Speaker 1: at the world with. Yeah, I mean, one might be
Speaker 1: heard to say something along the lines of I've never
Speaker 1: thought about myself that way before. I've never thought about uh,
Speaker 1: this individual in this particular way before. And again, this
Speaker 1: isn't us condoning like go out and do m d
Speaker 1: m A right now, or us saying don't do m
Speaker 1: d m A right It's it's neither of those things.
Speaker 1: But I do think that it's interesting within a restrictive environment,
Speaker 1: using it in conjunction with therapy, and especially uh, you know,
Speaker 1: in a clinic like this, where there's somebody on hand
Speaker 1: in case like you have a bad reaction or whatever,
Speaker 1: right rather than being in a farm in the middle
Speaker 1: of the woods where there's a secret rave going on. Now.
Speaker 1: The final example of m d m A therapy and
Speaker 1: m d m A research that we want to mention
Speaker 1: here is the possibility of using m d M A
Speaker 1: to treat individuals who are having a hard time with
Speaker 1: with their with their impending death, with with with fatal
Speaker 1: life you know, fatal conditions, life threatening illnesses, uh as
Speaker 1: they approach the death point. And there have been some
Speaker 1: other studies that involve pocybin and it's use magic mushrooms
Speaker 1: psocybin as as a way to help people deal with
Speaker 1: that scenario. It's not just the pain we're talking about here.
Speaker 1: We're talking just gravity of understanding your aiality, Yeah, thinking
Speaker 1: about yourself and the grappling with mortality and the basic
Speaker 1: heavy human stuff. So the the main individual here is
Speaker 1: uh San and sell Most psychiatrist Phil Wolfson, and he's
Speaker 1: currently studying the use of m d m A assisted
Speaker 1: psychotherapy to ease anxiety in eighteen adults diagnosed with life
Speaker 1: threatening illnesses. Now, all of these individuals have a prognosis
Speaker 1: life expectancy of at least nine months there can they
Speaker 1: currently have severe anxiety related to life threatening illness. So
Speaker 1: his goal here is to see whether patients suffering from
Speaker 1: crippling anxiety, fear, or depression over a terminal diagnosis can
Speaker 1: confine relative peace via m d m A assisted psychotherapy sessions.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of the same scenario we've talked about
Speaker 1: with these previous psychotherapy examples, helping them open up about
Speaker 1: what's happening, help them gain a little perspective on what's happening,
Speaker 1: and in doing so, perhaps find a place of peace. Right,
Speaker 1: see it from a different angle, one with less fear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But again, Wolfson's study is just getting off the ground here.
Speaker 1: UM just started up this year, so hopefully we'll we'll
Speaker 1: hear more of the details in the years to come,
Speaker 1: and you know, some of the core findings, and there's
Speaker 1: clearly got to be a lot of more research done
Speaker 1: in all of these areas before we're just doing this,
Speaker 1: you know, casually, especially in the sense of like predicting
Speaker 1: that the f d A is going to approve m
Speaker 1: d M A for these ride public use. And I think,
Speaker 1: I mean casual is a good thing to mention because
Speaker 1: I think the underlying truth here is that it's such
Speaker 1: a potent and powerful substance that it should never believe,
Speaker 1: never be done casually. Like I would argue that even
Speaker 1: in a recreational environment, it's not something to take lightly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the research that needs to be done right
Speaker 1: now is on all kinds of things, like why individuals
Speaker 1: have such strong physiological ab reactions to it, right, Like
Speaker 1: we talked about the first episode, there's very occasionally individuals
Speaker 1: who have like cardiac arrest or seizures or something that's
Speaker 1: not a common side effect of this, But why is
Speaker 1: it happening to these some individuals? Right? Other things like
Speaker 1: why is there such a variance in the mood reactions.
Speaker 1: Why for some people is at all positive, but for
Speaker 1: other people there's positive and negative, or others it's just negative.
Speaker 1: You know what's going on there? How do other drugs
Speaker 1: in conjunction work with m d M A right, especially
Speaker 1: like when you think about UM PTSD patients who are
Speaker 1: already taking daily medication for their PTSD, how's that interacting
Speaker 1: with the m D I mean, even Sasha Shulgin in
Speaker 1: his research parties would tell his his friends, Look, don't
Speaker 1: take any medication for like three to five days before
Speaker 1: you come over here. And then you know, we just
Speaker 1: need to figure out the chronic tolerance development as well,
Speaker 1: to like nail that down. Why is it that when
Speaker 1: we take m d M A human bodies basically over time,
Speaker 1: probably like between one dose and ten doses, over time
Speaker 1: the positive effects lesson in the negative effects get worse. Indeed,
Speaker 1: How to close out here, I just want to throw
Speaker 1: out a quick quote. This comes to us from from
Speaker 1: Alan Watts the late British Buddhist and Encounter Culture um icon.
Speaker 1: I'd say um wrote a lot spoke a lot about
Speaker 1: about Buddhism and h and also a certain amount about
Speaker 1: about about other other modes of religion, and also about
Speaker 1: a lot of the counterculture of stuff that was happening
Speaker 1: at the time time he was alive. This particular quote
Speaker 1: comes from nineteen seventy and he's he's probably commenting more
Speaker 1: directly on on overt psychedelics PS, psilocybin and LSD. But
Speaker 1: I think this holds true for a lot of what
Speaker 1: we've talked about regarding m d m A. He says,
Speaker 1: psychedelic experience is only a glimpse of genuine mystical insight,
Speaker 1: but a glimpse which can be matured and deepened by
Speaker 1: the various ways of meditation, in which drugs are no
Speaker 1: longer necessary or useful. If you get the message hang
Speaker 1: up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments like microscopes, telescopes,
Speaker 1: and telephones. The biologist does not sit with I permanently
Speaker 1: glued to the microscope. He goes is away and works
Speaker 1: on what he has seen. And I think that that
Speaker 1: matches up rather nicely with the with the goals of
Speaker 1: m d m A assisted psychotherapy. I do, yeah, And
Speaker 1: I kind of have always thought of Alan Watts as
Speaker 1: being sort of contemporary of Sasha Shulgin's as well, to
Speaker 1: the kind I wonder if those guys ever met, but
Speaker 1: they're kind of like on the same team, Yeah, exactly
Speaker 1: them and the two of them in Timothy Leria here
Speaker 1: on the Psychedelic Avengers. Uh. So, I think that's about
Speaker 1: you know, what we've got here on M D M A.
Speaker 1: But I'd really like to hear from you the audience
Speaker 1: some more about this because I'm sure there's a lot
Speaker 1: of things we didn't cover. The literature in this is
Speaker 1: dense and two days studying all this stuff leading up
Speaker 1: to it, and I there's no way we could even
Speaker 1: touch the surface. You know, there's just so much that's
Speaker 1: being studied in it right now. So I'd love to
Speaker 1: know if there's things that we missed, or there's things
Speaker 1: in particular that you you know about that are in
Speaker 1: trial right now or being studied right now that we
Speaker 1: would be in interested in coming back to in a
Speaker 1: future episode. Get in touch with us over social media.
Speaker 1: That is one of the best ways to let us
Speaker 1: know about these things. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler,
Speaker 1: and don't forget that you can always talk to us
Speaker 1: on periscope every Friday at noon. Yeah, and if you
Speaker 1: would like to hear us take This approach is sort
Speaker 1: of one to approach with with other substances such as
Speaker 1: h such as marijuana. We've ever done any content on
Speaker 1: marijuana and medicinal marijuana that would probably be h an
Speaker 1: interesting topic. Let us know if you'd like to hear afect.
Speaker 1: The idea for this episode came out of us talking
Speaker 1: about the instances of synthetic cannabis in the news. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and hey, you want to get in touch with this directly,
Speaker 1: you want to cut out stuff to blow your mind?
Speaker 1: Dot com and all the social accounts, you can just
Speaker 1: email us at and blow the mind at how stuff works?
Speaker 1: Got so more on this and thousands of other topics.
Speaker 1: Is it how stuff works? Ya about two four four
Speaker 1: four four first five fo