This is misleading. It's 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, an amphetamine and a stimulant. It has minor psychedelic effects and no one in their right mind would consider it a hallucinogen.
the psychedelic effects are lesser than e.g. DOB, but if you look at its cousin MDA you can see it's on the spectrum of psychedelia. a better category for MDMA is "empathogen/entactogen."
MDMA is more selective for serotonin, but it does release dopamine as well.
Comparing it to Wellbutrin, a nonstimulant, is far more misleading. MDMA is an amphetamine, and it acts similarly (but not identically) to other amphetamines that people are familiar with.
I'm also not sure you can claim that Wellbutrin isn't a stimulant, since it's a dopamine and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor.
Does it though? In my (and friend's) experience it intensifies emotions and senses but doesn't produce anything new, nor is it so intense as to be a "deliriant". I can't help but think people are labeling this drug over broadly without controlled research, because of its illegal status.
Also expensive.
The requirement that, for the entire (up to 8-10 hour) duration of the trip, a suitably qualified therapist be on hand, must dictate that each non-trivial dosage under this regime will have a ticket price of several thousand dollars per-time.
It's one of the catch-22s in medicine. That a poor person on the street can have the same experience for $50 as a rich person has for $5000, with the difference in cost being the literal $4950 more of specialists and testers and monitors and side experts that the rich person is paying for. For reasons, yes, but that doesn't change the numbers, the fact that for every one of the latter there are 10 of the former.
Not the same. You mentioned the ongoing support through the whole trip already. Then there's guidance for the purpose of the experience rather than possibly just getting lost in the feeling/escape. Then there's validated source/safety of the drugs. Finally, if anything goes wrong, you have a person hopefully trained in how to respond immediately.
"..the difference in cost being the literal $4950 more of specialists and testers and monitors and side experts that the rich person is paying for. For reasons, yes..."
I'd say it's very unlikely that these treatments will ever be government subsidied for anything except very treatment resistant depression/PTSD (for psilocybin/MDMA respectively).
So young people who want to get high have to go to drug dealers who also offer meth and other drugs.
Thanks, conservative Australian politicians.
> The regulator says there are currently no approved products that contain MDMA or psilocybin. However the reclassification means psychiatrists will be able to access and legally supply certain medicines that contain them, even if they have not been evaluated for safety or effectiveness.
How exactly is this supposed to work then? Are psychiatrists supposed to order MDMA/psilocybin directly from the companies that produce the two for research use, which presumably involves fearsome bureaucracy and markups?
It sounds like this would make the law effectively a dead letter until a regular pharma company goes through the Australian approval process and gets the drugs into pharmacies. Medical marijuana in Australia has suffered from similar issues, with an onerous approval process in many states making it very difficult to get a prescription.
Yes I imagine the next step is a local supplier company goes through the valid approval process and gets their product approved.
>Medical marijuana in Australia has suffered from similar issues, with an onerous approval process in many states making it very difficult to get a prescription.
I live in NSW so maybe I am a bit naive but it is possible to see a doctor over the internet that works for a dispensary in another state and have them issue you a prescription if you fit the criteria for medicinal cannabis.
I was cynical about the idea of these dispensaries having their own in house doctors but upon further thinking it makes sense since some doctors still don't acknowledge the medicinal benefit of cannabis.
The industry/clinic space is really bizzare. I have been bombarded with requests to work as a telehealth prescriber. Because of the restricted product supply, ‘clinics’ are popping up to offer telehealth consults and then push their products.
There are multiple issues with this:
- the doctors doing the prescribing are often junior doctors, not GPs or pain specialists
- they have a limited supply of stock and no real understanding of ‘what is right when’
- pretty much all the stoners I know have now switched to medical marijuana (which is fine but for the next point)
- the TGA will at some point come down on doctors who are doing shitty consults and just writing the prescription with a cursory ‘whatever’ - because the TGA and medical board in this country are not as toothless as in the US
So basically anyone can get a prescription, and the clinics are pushing their own (or their own imported) product so they get fat margins, and there’s some médico-légal risk.
Over time (and even now) there are increasing numbers of GPs who can prescribe and there are websites that can point you to them which is what I’d recommend if you or a loved one actually has a medical condition, as opposed to just wanting to get stoned.
As I understand it, yes.
Legalisation hasn't meant it has gone mainstream.
It is still going to be administered in very selective cases where the current range of medication and therapy has not been effective.
It may only be tens or low hundreds of people who receive these treatments in the first year.
The efficacy of the treatment will be monitored and the hope is that these patients outcomes are positive, which will add to the body of work supporting MDMA/psilocybin as an antidepressant.
Treatment centers could grow them on site pretty easily needing only basic cleanliness to avoid contamination.
All psychiatric treatments have a risk of a bad experience, including talk therapy.
If antidepressants are known for anything, it’s the side effects. It seems people must still go through these before psychedelics, what a shame. Hopefully this will change over time. We need more data, but I have a feeling there will be fewer side effects compared to current treatments.
Don't ask me how I know this.
Don't ask me how I know this.
That is what I was getting at - if the therapy is bad, there is a chance you can get out before it gets too bad and "save yourself".
Once you take the shrooms, there is no antidote, and there is no going back. No damage mitigation.
Sorry either way...
