Alex Pasternack, editor of Motherboard.tv says: "We did a profile of the (promising) quest to treat Iraq and Afghanistan veterans' PTSD with MDMA."



Michael and Annie Mithoefer's patients come to their clinic in Charleston, South Carolina, as a last resort on a grueling tour of duty. Unable to shake what they've experienced, witnessed or carried out, on orders or otherwise, in the suburbs of Baghdad or the valleys of Helmand Province, they're wracked by the relentless mental sirens of post-traumatic stress. They've sought out the husband-wife team because no other therapy has made it all stop. They're up for anything.



The Mithoefer's are upfront: should trauma not surface at the patient's behest, well, then at a certain point they'll make it surface. The process can be painful, and spans hours, so patients arrive mid-morning. After final "set" preparations each subject is handed one small, curious capsule. It's 10AM and they're ingesting ecstasy.



The daylong sessions that follow are part of a small, open-label Phase II study ofMDMA-assisted psychotherapy for post-traumatic stress disorder in war veterans. The experiment examines how 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, better known as ecstasy, may alleviate the crippling, long-term horrors of "chronic, treatment-resistant, combat-related PTSD" when administered at low doses and in controlled settings.



This is the leading edge of a 10-year, $10 million push by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies for Food and Drug Administration approval ofMDMA as prescription medicine. Rick Doblin, the founder and director of MAPS, envisions a day when ecstasy can be picked up at the corner drug store.