As UK researchers begin human therapeutic experiments using the psychedelic drug LSD an Australian group are setting up the nation's first clinical study using MDMA to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Steve McDonald, from Australian organisation, Psychedelic Research in Science and Medicine (PRISM), told ninemsn that getting such a study up in Australia had been very difficult, even though it is legal.

"We're finding that the medical profession in Australia is very conservative, and people are reluctant to get involved in anything concerning an illicit drug, even though it's legal research. People are very concerned about public image," he said.

Mr McDonald has a personal stake in this area of research. The former army officer suffered PTSD after returning from combat, and was treated unsuccessfully using conventional methods before trying treatment with MDMA.

"I've had personal experience and benefit from psychedelic drugs in relation to my PTSD," he said.

PRISM have spent much of the last three years trying to get such a study underway, after receiving funding from the director of the US organisation Multi-Disciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies when he visited Australia in 2010.

Now they are finally making progress, McDonald said.

"We've actually got a psychiatrist on board who's prepared to do the clinical work, and we're taking to an academic who's interested in helping us, but it has been very slow," he said.

Similar studies using MDMA to treat people with PTSD have taken place in the USA, Canada and Europe.

Mr McDonald said that PRISM is in regular contact with researchers around the world who are working with psychedelics, including those behind the recent study at Imperial College, London.

The UK researchers, are investigating, among other things, the possibility of using LSD to treat substance abuse disorders like alcoholism.

A 2012 Norwegian review of studies conducted in the 1960s and 1970s that involved 563 patients found that a single dose of the drug was associated with a decrease in alcohol misuse.

Dr Tim Woodruff, who is vice-president of the Doctors Reform Society, said that although the issue was well outside of his expertise, anything that had therapeutic value was worth investigating.

"If there's something of therapeutic benefit, we should be considering it. But you've got to take into account the downside," Dr Woodruff told ninemsn.

"The Imperial College is a reputable scientific centre if they're doing good research they should continue that, but it's a long way from application, by the sound of it.