Sample chapters:
About This Book
In the Summer
of 1985, I was a college Sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania in
Philadelphia. I was studying the Biological Basis of Behavior, a combination
of biology, psychology and neuroscience. I was spending that Summer on
campus, taking some extra pre-med courses when I read several magazine
articles that caught my attention. There was a new drug receiving a lot
of media attention. There were pictures of people in bars, dancing on tables,
and other pictures of people lying down wearing eyeshades in doctor's offices.
The government was in the process of making this new drug illegal, and
the physicians were fighting the government's action. At Penn, my concentration
within my major was psychopharmacology, the interaction of drugs and behavior,
so you can imagine that I was quite intrigued by the allure of any "new
drug," let alone one they were calling "Ecstasy." But here was a drug being
used by psychologists and psychiatrists to augment the psychotherapy experience.
These practitioners had discovered a medicine that helped catalyze the
therapeutic process, that solidified the therapeutic alliance and helped
to create "breakthrough sessions." That Summer, I wrote a forty page research
paper about MDMA, and I spent a good deal of time on the phone with various
players in the Ecstasy debate.
Over
the past sixteen years, I have stayed in touch with many of these psychiatrists,
chemists, researchers, and "psychedelic cheerleaders." I have also stayed
tuned into the evolving MDMA story, and was often aggravated by the misinformation
being propagated repeatedly about this complex molecule. In the Spring
of 1998, it occurred to me that I could create a book if each of them simply
wrote about their own area of expertise. I assigned everyone a chapter,
and assumed I would write one or two as well. After two years, I had to
help some of the busier people along and ended up conducting and transcribing
interviews so that everyone's piece of the puzzle could be represented.
Ecstasy: The Complete Guide is a book which gathers the opinions of twenty
two world experts on Ecstasy (MDMA). David Nichols, the chemist who makes
pharmaceutical grade MDMA for human studies, has authored the chapter on
the chemistry of MDMA. The doctor who first alerted the world to the dangers
of overheating at raves, John Henry, has co-authored the chapter on the
medical risks associated with MDMA use. Also, there are interviews with
psychiatrist George Greer, who has given MDMA to over eighty therapy
patients, the UCLA researcher Charles Grob who has given MDMA to human
subjects, and Emanuel Sferios, the founder of DanceSafe, the controversial
group that offers risk reduction information and tests Ecstasy pills at
raves. Other interviews include a well known rabbi, Zalman Schacter, who
speaks of its spiritual effects; Rick Doblin, a man who is navigating the
political waters to see that it becomes a prescription medicine; and the
Godparents of MDMA, Sasha and Ann Shulgin.
Initially, I wanted
to focus on the potential therapeutic effects of MDMA. Ecstasy: The Complete
Guide has sections on MDMA-assisted psychotherapy and on the potential
clinical uses of MDMA. As a psychiatrist, I am eager for this powerful
tool to be explored and exploited in the name of good therapy. Medically
supervised single-dose MDMA sessions may be useful in a variety of patient
populations, ranging from post traumatic stress disorder and depression
to chronic pain and terminal illness. But as a physician, I also feel obligated
to address the potential dangers of unsupervised recreational use. Millions
of people are using Ecstasy in this way and need to be educated about the
potential consequences of their behavior. I believe that the harm reduction
model is the most appropriate template when attempting to reach this population.
The medical, psychiatric, and legal risks of Ecstasy use are all fully
explored in this book.
The final
section of the book is a review of all clinical MDMA research currently
underway around the world. I believe it is crucial that MDMA be fully explored
and understood, that both its risks and benefits be studied in good, double
blind, clinical research. I am especially dedicated to promoting human
studies of the potential therapeutic applications of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy.
To that end, all proceeds from the sale of Ecstasy: The Complete
Guide will be donated to the Holland Fund for Therapeutic MDMA Research.
Your tax-deductible donations to this fund will be genuinely appreciated
by those scientists and clinicians who will likely never be funded by our
government. Thank you.
Additional Chapters:
Rick Ingrasci, MD Clinical
Experience with MDMA (Interview)
Juraj Styk, MD MDMA-Therapy
in Switzerland
Nina Borgoche Peace,
Love, Unity, and Respect: Can Raving Save the Planet?
James O'Callaghan, PhD Defining
Neurotoxicity: Lessons From MDMA And Other Amphetamines