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MDMA, better known as the illegal drug Ecstasy, has shown promise for treating people with post-traumatic stress disorder. Now the FDA has granted the drug “breakthrough” status, and a phase 3 trial could begin as early as spring 2018.


Breakthrough status means that the drug will get a faster-than-usual FDA review, with a goal of six months rather than the usual ten. But the drug has to be fully tested first, and that’s the idea behind the two trials planned for next year.

In the trials, people with PTSD will be treated either with conventional psychotherapy, or with therapy plus MDMA. (Nobody is planning to use MDMA on its own; it helps the therapy but does not replace it.)




Ingmar Gorman, who will be running one of the trials (and was recently on our podcast about microdosing), tells us that the drug seems to help people who don’t respond to existing treatments—and that the effect seems to last for at least a year after treatment. If it passes the trials, MDMA could be available for patients in just a few more years.