As a chronic depressive retiree, I take exception to the glacially advancing way that drugs like MDMA are being studied today. Such meds work in an holistic manner and should not be subject to materialist criteria for "efficacy." They work. Everybody knows it. This requirement for scientific proof is really just a way to slow down re-legalization of such drugs and to make sure that it will have as little impact as possible on pharmaceutical companies if and when it finally occurs.
Thanks to this willful ignorance on the part of science, I will be DEAD long before institutions like Emory ever get around to "proving" that MDMA might be effective in some way for me.
And so I will not be eligible for your trials, on the grounds that I merely am depressed and do not "have" PTSD. And yet I obviously have PTSD in a philosophical sense. EVERYBODY has PTSD to some degree: that's what neurosis is all about: it is the ingrained subconscious memorization of counterproductive emotional responses engendered by incidents in the past (whether the triggering conditions are consciously remembered or not).
And yet everyone plays along with the idea that a board-certified PTSD has nothing to do with me -- and that's just a materialist bias, thanks to which we reify conditions like PTSD as things in themselves. This is convenient for drug makers because it gives them endless markets to exploit: as many markets as we decide to devise separate and discrete "illnesses" for in the DSM. But this "disease mongering" is based on philosophical assumptions that are sharply at odds with the ideas of holism championed by the Cosmovision of the Andes and the indigenous attitude in general according to which health is a balance of a wide range of factors. Materialists, to the contrary, seek to limit the number of variables in their studies, thereby bolstering their hubristic pretensions for having perfect knowledge about all things. But the price they pay is that their conclusions do not apply to real people in the messy world of intertwined causes and effects, but merely to abstracted stand-ins, denuded of everything that makes them human.
Actually, however, it is common sense that MDMA could help me. Common sense! (Just read the standard reports of users and tell me it is not a wish list for busting depression -- not just from the drug use itself but from the health-inspiring benefit of ANTICIPATION of use, something that materialists never consider!) But materialist Drug Warriors would have us MAKE BELIEVE that we do not know that entheogenic medicines work. They demand that real help must be proven scientifically in a very expensive and time-consuming way -- and then only by thinking of MDMA with respect to one single board-certified condition at a time. This is really just a new way of suppressing the kind of holistic drugs that "only" work according to indigenous peoples -- or according to anecdote, which scientists these days feel free to ignore, even when the use of MDMA promoted unprecedented peace, love and understanding on the dance floors of Britain in the 1990s.
That Camelot was brought to an end when the UK police cracked down on Ecstasy use, after which alcohol became the drug of choice and the dance floors devolved into chaos -- requiring that concert organizers hire special forces troops to keep the peace!!!
And why? Because a 100-pound girl died from dehydration because UK leaders preferred to demonize Ecstasy rather than to teach safe use2.
This is one of many problems with the drug approval process at least when it comes to psychoactive medicine: not only does the FDA ignore glaringly obvious drug benefits as mentioned above, but they never take into account the risks of NOT approving a drug -- which, in the case of MDMA, means, for one thing, the increased use of alcohol.
I am writing this because I received a heads-up from the MAPS organization3 that you were in search of participants for an FDA trial. Notwithstanding the above complaints, such studies as yours are "the only game in town" for people who wish to access MDMA legally for health reasons. However, as I appear to be barred from benefiting from MDMA legally -- at least in this lifetime -- I wanted at least to go on record as deploring the glacial pace of drug re-approval that is keeping a godsend medicine from those in need -- all under the warped idea that the best drug policy is to teach fear and to demonize substances rather than to learn how to use them as safely and as wisely as possible.
Sincerely Yours
PS All drugs obviously have negative potentials. But this is an FDA that approves of brain-damaging shock therapy and of the psychiatric pill mill, thanks to which 1 in 4 American women are dependent on Big Pharma meds for life4. You cannot tell me that their scruples about MDMA safety make sense given this back story, least of all in a country that countenances tens of thousands of deaths each year due to alcohol5, a drug whose use MDMA could help to decrease!
Author's Follow-up: September 6, 2024
A reader might complain, "Yes, but we live in a materialist society, so we have to play by the rules of science." To which I say, we need to expose this materialist bias, not pretend that it does not exist. Only by exposing it can we show that the demonization of drugs is not common sense but is rather based on human presuppositions that are open to debate, especially insofar as the US view has never been championed by indigenous communities. If we cannot get the US and its ideological partners to change their dogmatically jaundiced views of psychoactive medicine, then maybe we can at least get them to recognize that the philosophy underlying their hatred is not universally accepted and so get them to stop bullying other countries into hating drugs too, especially when confronted with the observation that doing so is nothing less than pharmacological colonialism.
Open Letters
Check out the conversations that I have had so far with the movers and shakers in the drug-war game -- or rather that I have TRIED to have. Actually, most of these people have failed to respond to my calls to parlay, but that need not stop you from reading MY side of these would-be chats.
I used to be surprised at this reticence on the part of modern drug-war pundits, until I realized that most of them are materialists. That is, most of them believe in (or claim to believe in) the psychiatric pill mill. If they happen to praise psychedelic drugs as a godsend for the depressed, they will yet tell us that such substances are only for those whose finicky body chemistries fail to respond appropriately to SSRIs and SNRIs. The fact is, however, there are thousands of medicines out there that can help with psychological issues -- and this is based on simple psychological common sense. But materialist scientists ignore common sense. That's why Dr. Robert Glatter wrote an article in Forbes magazine wondering if laughing gas could help the depressed.
As a lifelong depressive, I am embarrassed for Robert, that he has to even ask such a question. Of course laughing gas could help. Not only is laughter "the best medicine," as Readers Digest has told us for years, but looking forward to laughing is beneficial too. But materialist scientists ignore anecdote and history and tell us that THEY will be the judge of psychoactive medicines, thank you very much. And they will NOT judge such medicines by asking folks like myself if they work but rather by looking under a microscope to see if they work in the biochemical way that materialists expect.
I hope that scientists will eventually find the prohibition gene so that we can eradicate this superstitious way of thinking from humankind. "Ug! Drugs bad! Drugs not good for anyone, anywhere, at any dose, for any reason, ever! Ug!"
The December Scientific American features a story called "The New Nuclear Age," about a trillion-dollar plan to add 100s of ICBM's to 5 states, which an SA editorial calls "kick me" signs. This Neanderthal plan comes from pols who think that compassion-boosting drugs are evil!
Even the worst forms of "abuse" can be combatted with a wise use of a wide range of psychoactive drugs, to combat both physical and psychological cravings. But drug warriors NEED addiction to be a HUGE problem. That's their golden goose.
According to Donald Trump's view of life, Jesus Christ was a chump. We should hate our enemies, not love them.
Here's the first step in the FDA process for evaluating a psychoactive drug:
Ignore all glaringly obvious benefits
The DEA has done everything it can to keep Americans clueless about opium and poppies. The agency is a disgrace to a country that claims to value knowledge and freedom of information.
The media called out Trump for fearmongering about immigrants, but the media engages in fearmongering when it comes to drugs. The latest TV plot line: "white teenage girl forced to use fentanyl!" America loves to feel morally superior about "drugs."
The drug war is being used as a wrecking ball to destroy democratic freedoms. It has destroyed the 4th amendment and freedom of religion and given the police the right to confiscate the property of peaceful and productive citizens.
Pro-psychedelic websites tell me to check with my "doctor" before using Mother Nature. But WHY? I'm the expert on my own psychology, damn it. These "doctors" are the ones who got me hooked on synthetic drugs, because they honor microscopic evidence, not time-honored usage.
I've been told by many that I should have seen "my doctor" before withdrawing from Effexor. But, A) My doctor got me hooked on the junk in the first place, and, B) That doctor completely ignores the OBVIOUS benefits of indigenous meds and focuses only on theoretical downsides.
Buy the Drug War Comic Book by the Drug War Philosopher Brian Quass, featuring 150 hilarious op-ed pics about America's disgraceful war on Americans
You have been reading an article entitled, Hello? MDMA works, already!: An open letter to Dr. Jessica Maples-Keller, principal investigator for the 'MDMA Plus Exposure Therapy for PTSD' at Emory University, published on September 6, 2024 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)
ear Dr. Maples-Keller1:
You have been reading an article entitled, Hello? MDMA works, already!: An open letter to Dr. Jessica Maples-Keller, principal investigator for the 'MDMA Plus Exposure Therapy for PTSD' at Emory University, published on September 6, 2024 on AbolishTheDEA.com. For more information about America's disgraceful drug war, which is anti-patient, anti-minority, anti-scientific, anti-mother nature, imperialistic, the establishment of the Christian Science religion, a violation of the natural law upon which America was founded, and a childish and counterproductive way of looking at the world, one which causes all of the problems that it purports to solve, and then some, visit the drug war philosopher, at abolishTheDEA.com. (philosopher's bio; go to top of this page)