Pubdate: Sun, 14 Sep 2014
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2014 The Washington Post Company
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/mUgeOPdZ
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Gregory Crouch
Page: B7

ECSTASY THERAPY

ACID TEST

LSD, Ecstasy, and the Power to Heal

By Tom Shroder

Blue Rider, 426 pp. $27.95

LSD, ecstasy (MDMA) and other psychedelics are powerful, 
mind-altering drugs that, as described by former Washington Post 
Magazine editor Tom Shroder, "intrinsically [challenge] the 
rationalist, materialist underpinnings of Western culture." For most 
of a century, our society has struggled to come to grips with these 
"profoundly threatening drugs," largely without success. They've all 
been made illegal. For decades, the Food and Drug Administration and 
the Drug Enforcement Administration have strictly banned scientific 
investigations into their potential benefits - which is unfortunate, 
since these psychoactive drugs also seem able to do incredible good, 
particularly in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

As Shroder writes, "PTSD is usually triggered by combat, rape, 
childhood abuse, a serious accident, or a natural disaster." Every 
year, as many as 5 million Americans suffer from its effects. 
Frequent consequences include depression, drug and alcohol abuse, and 
a host of associated health problems. In "both humanitarian and 
economic terms," the costs are staggering.

And PTSD stubbornly resists treatment. Anti-depressant and 
anti-anxiety medications only ease symptoms. Traditional talk therapy 
can take years to process root causes, and it isn't reliably 
successful. Exotic psychoactive drugs such as LSD and MDMA seem to 
bring powerful healing energies to bear on the underlying issues. But 
despite a growing mountain of evidence supporting the therapeutic 
benefits delivered by these drugs, government authorities have 
blocked scientific and therapeutic explorations of their potential.

Fortunately, the government's prohibitions may be loosening, thanks 
to a cadre of psychedelic advocates who have steadfastly refused to 
surrender to the taboos. The story of those people and their efforts 
to win scientific and therapeutic approval for psychedelic drugs is 
the central thrust of Shroder's strangely wonderful new book, "Acid Test."

To tell this fascinating tale, Shroder deviates wildly from strict 
chronology, which creates some confusion but, once you surrender to 
his process, somehow makes perfect sense - and mirrors the effects of 
the drugs he writes about. With liberal doses of psychedelic history 
and science interspersed among scenes as bizarrely diverse as intense 
therapy sessions, hard combat in Iraq, frustrating government 
hearings and drug explorations supervised by a South American shaman, 
Shroder develops three principal characters: Rick Doblin, a 
psychedelic therapy advocate who, in college in the early 1970s, came 
to believe that "psychedelics, used with care and expertise, could do 
people and the world a lot of good"; Michael Mithoefer, an ER doctor 
turned psychiatrist convinced of the healing power of psychedelic 
drugs; and Nicholas Blackston, a Marine combat veteran whose life was 
being ruined by PTSD.

Having begun his career practicing emergency-room medicine, Mithoefer 
came to feel that he was often "catching the tail end of psychiatric 
problems" - heart attacks, stabbings and drug overdoses that were 
caused by "psychological problems coming to an end result." Inspired 
to study psychiatry and attack fundamental causes, he returned to 
medical school and became a board-certified psychiatrist. Revolting 
against the tendency of modern psychiatry to drug away symptoms and 
institutionalize severe patients, Mithoefer sought better solutions. 
That search connected him with the healing potential of psychedelic 
drugs - and with Doblin, who'd devoted decades to accomplishing what 
seemed impossible: getting the government to approve the scientific 
and therapeutic use of psychedelic drugs. At the end of a multiyear 
struggle with intransigent bureaucracies, they finally received 
approval to conduct a preliminary investigation into whether MDMA 
helped resolve the psychic pain of PTSD-afflicted patients. Ex-Marine 
machine-gunner Blackston was one of the subjects selected.

In Iraq, Blackston survived terrible experiences. For a capstone 
horror, an insurgent bomb blew up his vehicle. Wounded by shrapnel, 
he helped his squad survive the subsequent ambush. A close friend 
bled to death in the chaos. After he returned home, PTSD began eating 
away at Blackston's life. He suffered hallucinations, nightmares and 
constant anxiety. For trivial provocations, he leveled wild outbursts 
of rage at his undeserving fiancee and mother. He tried a variety of 
traditional therapies. None brought him any meaningful relief. With 
no end in sight, he contemplated suicide.

Fortunately, Blackston was chosen for Doblin and Mitheofer's MDMA 
study. "Acid Test" reaches its positively thrilling climax in his 
intense ecstasy-assisted therapy sessions, administered by Mithoefer 
and his wife. In a safe, aesthetically pleasing environment, under 
the close supervision of qualified therapists, MDMA seems to "simply 
dissolve problems," offering a shortcut to the "profound peace, total 
acceptance ... [and] transcendent normality [that is] the wished-for 
endpoint of all therapy." MDMA "helped [one] to trust in the process 
of opening up and to see that, even with difficult things, feeling 
them and integrating them" was the path to healing. Reading about the 
relief Blackston experienced practically brings tears to the eyes.

"Acid Test" makes a convincing case that such therapies ought to be 
prescribable by all practicing psychiatrists. With an average of 22 
veterans a day committing suicide and the Department of Veterans 
Affairs on the hook for more than $1 trillion in PTSD-related 
expenses due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's hard to 
imagine how our society can afford to ignore the powerful healing 
potential contained in such profoundly psychoactive drugs as LSD and 
MDMA. Even more compelling is the moral debt we owe the 
PTSD-afflicted men and women who volunteered to fight our terrible wars.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom