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I have to agree with Steph that I am still skeptical about the use of drugs (in particular ecstasy) for treatment of such disorders as PTSD. When suffering from PTSD some of the most overwhelming aspects is a lack of interest in anything, feeling as though you will never be happy again, and a feeling as though you don’t belong in society because you can’t understand the emotions of others. While I can see how being able to feel euphoria again would be a reason for the use of ecstasy (and be reminded what it feels like), I think the risk of sinking later in the week is too great a risk to take since suffers are already functioning at a very low level. Also, the case study we read really talked about how taking ecstasy helped this patient define what was causing her symptoms--- most people with PTSD are very sure of why they are feeling the way they are and what triggered it. Maybe this was a way for this lady to think differently about her experiences and how to change what she was doing, but I don’t think that the strategy would work for all suffers.

This doesn’t mean, however, that these drugs cannot be used as treatments for some disorders at some point. The argument that people would abuse these drugs if prescribed them seems absurd. The risk for abuse would probably comparable to abuse of people taking pain killers etc: basically none for those people that are taking these drugs for medical purposes. More research needs to be done, however as we talked about in class this is very difficult. It will also be difficult because we can never be sure how closely an animal model relates to humans (especially when we're looking at cognition). While making psychedelics allowed unrestrictedly would be inappropriate, they should be available to researchers to learn more about them and to investigate potential clinical uses for these drugs.

In responding to some questions that Elliot posted, I think it’s interesting to think of these drugs compared to morphine and alcohol. In terms of morphine, these drugs could be made to be under the same sort of restrictions and lead to a more effective use of the drugs. Technically the purpose of using these drugs would be very different than to why one might be prescribed morphine, but their restrictions could be the same. While people do become addicted to morphine, it is still mainly used as a drug under physician’s care. These other drugs could be made to be like this as well, and by making it restricted but available, may cut down on the rates of abuse (since it’s not seen as illegal/daring to use any more).

Alcohol is an interesting comparison. People can easily die from an overdose of alcohol, while like we discussed in class, you don’t overdose on ecstasy or LSD itself. Alcohol abuse is also very prevalent. Why is it then that alcohol is legal and the drugs are not? It returns us to the question of the hippie/techno backlash and I would suspect that alcohol was not outlawed (in recent times) because it has become such a part of our culture. Imagine if alcohol was outlawed tomorrow…Drugs, on the other hand, became part of this counter-culture and the dominant culture was able to quash them out. Also, their discovery and use is very new (unlike alcohol) to our culture, and cultures take time to adjust to new things. With more research, it will be interesting to see how drugs such as LSD may have a new job in the medical field.