Authors Octavian Dixon Ritchie, Cameron N Donley and Gabrielle Dixon Ritchie Published September 6, 2023 Background On February 3, 2023, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care, announced that on July 1, 2023, the psychedelics 3′4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) and psilocybin will be medically accessible and regulated for psychiatric use in …
Authors Anoek S Van Vugt, Josjan Zijlmans, Ramon Lindauer and Levi Van Dam Published September 1, 2023 Background PTSD in adolescence causes much suffering and has substantial health-care costs. Many patients with severe PTSD do not respond to psychotherapy or continue to have symptoms despite trauma-focused psychotherapies and psychopharmacological treatment. A recent alternative in the …
Written by Libby Furminger History 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), also known as Mandy, Molly, Ecstasy or ‘E’, is a class A drug known for inducing feelings of happiness, chattiness, liveliness, and overall feelings of ecstasy, making it a common adjacent to enhancing raves, clubs and parties. Lesser known, MDMA has historically also been used in research …
Written by Professor Fiona Measham and Dr Michael Pascoe A study published in the journal of Drug Science Policy and Law describes tumultuous changes to the UK MDMA drug market following Brexit and COVID-19 lockdowns. In this first academic publication from The Loop’s ‘back of house’ testing service, nearly half of substances sold as MDMA were …
In this webinar from the Student Psychedelic Conference, we hear from two groups doing amazing harm reduction work! PsyCare Amanda Guzinska started working with PsyCare since 2013 having discovered them at a festival a couple of years prior while helping a friend through a difficult experience. Among her friends or even strangers in need, …
Dosing in psychoactive drugs Dosing represents one of the three critical elements that determine the quality of a drug experience, alongside set and setting. Determining appropriate dosages can be difficult due to ambiguity in drug purity, drug experience of the individual, tolerance, and the aforementioned set and setting. While these represent general guidelines, experience, variability …
Today’s episode features Dr Peter Gasser, the president of the Swiss Medical Society for Psycholytic Therapy. Professor Nutt and Dr Gasser talk about the rather unusual and innovative attitude to psychedelic research in Switzerland. How can Britain learn from the Swiss? What are the drug policies in the Albert Hofmann’s – the discoverer of LSD – …
In this webinar, two of the world’s leading psychedelic research experts; Dr Ben Sessa and Dr Meg Spriggs, answer questions on the therapeutic applications of MDMA and psilocybin! Who is Dr Ben Sessa? Dr Ben Sessa is a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist who has worked with young people and adults in the field …
Any recreational drug use is likely to carry a degree of risk. This includes legal highs such as alcohol and tobacco but is especially true of illegal drugs due to lack of regulation and the often unsafe context in which they may be consumed. It is of utmost importance that frontline healthcare workers understand the …
This week’s episode features “The Mithoefers” – Annie and Michael Mithoefer – the pioneers of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. Michael Mithoefer, MD is a Clinical Investigator and acting Medical Director of MAPS Public Benefit Corporation. Together with his wife Annie, they completed the first phase 2 clinical trial of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD in 2009 and …
This week’s episode features Richard ‘Rick’ Doblin, who is the founder and director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) – a non-profit research organisation he established in 1986. Somewhere between getting an undergraduate degree in psychology and a doctorate in public policy, Rick, having had discovered psychedelics, began his fight against unjustified …
In this webinar, Dr Ben Sessa explains how MDMA therapy could treat alcohol use disorder (alcoholism), based on results from his recent safety and tolerability study. He gives background into the psychological trauma which often causes addiction and alcohol use disorder, and how modern psychiatry struggles to treat these conditions at the root cause. He …
The Contradictions of Ketamine: results from a new clinical trial treating alcohol use disorder – Prof Celia Morgan Celia Morgan is a Professor of Psychopharmacology and Head of Psychology at the University of Exeter. She started researching ketamine at UCL for her PhD with Val Curran over twenty years ago and branched out into research …
The tables have been turned in this one-off special of the Drug Science podcast. In this episode, Professor David Nutt is interviewed by renowned singer-songwriter – Joss Stone. Professor Nutt is the Chair of the Drug Science Scientific Committee and currently the Edmund J Safra Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology and Head of the Neuropsychopharmacology Unit at …
On July 14th 2020, the UK’s leading independent scientific body on drugs has launched the Drug Science Medical Psychedelics Working Group. Building off the success of the Medical Cannabis Working Group, the Medical Psychedelics Working Group is a consortium of Drug Science experts, leading academics, researchers and policy specialists, supported by industry partners. The group’s aim …
MDMA (3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine) was first synthesised in 1912 by chemists at the pharmaceutical company, Merck in Germany. In 1985, MDMA was placed in schedule 1, resulting in no research being conducted into the potential therapeutic applications of MDMA between 1985 – 2000. However, since then, MDMA has been included in over 5000 academic articles and administered to …
Dr Ben Sessa was the first doctor to administer MDMA assisted therapy in the 21st century and Christopher Trudgian was one of his very first patients. They both join Professor David Nutt to answer the question… can MDMA be used therapeutically to treat addiction and/or PTSD? The links between childhood trauma/PTSD and adult addiction are very …
Professor David Nutt sits down with Fiona Measham, Anna Wade & Janine Milburn for an in depth look into why drug testing is so vital at festivals and beyond. Topics discussed include; Janine’s views following her daughters accidental overdose, how drug testing works at The Loop’s facilities, tackling the idea that the practice sends ‘mixed messages’, …
3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), also known as ecstasy, was first synthesized in 1912 but first reached widespread popularity as a legal alternative after the much sought-after recreational drug 3,4-methylenedioxy-amphetamine (MDA) was made illegal in 1970. Because of its benign, feeling-enhancing, and nonhallucinatory properties, MDMA was used by a few dozen psychotherapists in the United States between 1977 …
Both recreational and problematic 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)/ecstasy users could benefit from employing harm reduction interventions intended to preserve health and prevent negative consequences. To evaluate whether use of such interventions varied by country of residence and frequency of ecstasy use, we used web-based surveys to assess how often 104 lower-frequency and higher-frequency American ecstasy users and …
A version of this post was published in The Guardian It seems the London club Fabric has had its licence revoked on the grounds that its management is inadequately controlling drug use in the venue. The immediate incidents that led to this decision were the tragic deaths this year of two young men at the …
Underground psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy has persisted in Europe despite the banning of the substances LSD and MDMA in the 1960s and 1980s, respectively. This article describes the work of a Zurich-based psychotherapist providing individual and group psycholytic psychotherapy, whose practice persisted for several years before she was arrested in 2009. The article provides commentary on the …
A version of this post was published in The Guardian The past week has seen a number of drug disasters in the UK, one of which is the unexpected deaths of three men, two from Ipswich and one from Telford. They all appear to have taken a drug called PMA (para-Methoxyamphetamine). We presume that they …
Recreational drug use in Canada is not uncommon, but as with most societies, illegal drug use carries harsh penalties resulting in a criminal record when an individual is successfully prosecuted. Popular drugs of use in Canada include ecstasy, cannabis (including some synthetic cannabinoids sold as ‘Spice’ and ‘Incense’) and several emerging psychoactive ‘legal highs’. Surprisingly, …