pigeon interrupted
Member
Science is correct. Yet alcohol is legal, hydrocodone (!!) is the most prescribed drug in the United States at over 130 million prescriptions per year, and MDMA is Schedule I alongside heroin:
We need to assess drugs empirically. More people are dying each year in the US from prescription drug OD/synergy than from car crashes, hydrocodone is handed out like candy despite the incredible harm potential (addiction, LD50, lethal synergy with alcohol/benzos/others), marijuana is one of the most potent painkillers available and nearly entirely harmless yet still not treated as a legitimate medical option by many. Sure, but heroin in pill form, no problem.
Gotta feed that prison-industrial complex using that pharmaceutical/medical-industrial complex, etc.
We don't really have the same scale problem with prescription drugs in the UK, in part thanks to the NHS being perpetually penniless, lol. But the UK will be right there with you in a few decades - maybe less: privatized prison system, privatized police force, NHS is looking damn shaky with around 200 MPs who would directly benefit from carving it up. We have already outsourced Search and Rescue operations.
More people are dying each year in the US from prescription drug OD/synergy than from car crashes, hydrocodone is handed out like candy despite the incredible harm potential (addiction, LD50, lethal synergy with alcohol/benzos/others)
I would love to see the statistics of car crashes involving drivers under the influence of prescription drugs in the US. Although, I'm not sure if US even has a universally implemented test for drink driving.
On MDMA: I met an ex-serviceman (through a pal in the army) who had PTSD. He had been on civvy street for about two years after spending twenty consecutive years doing tours in places like Northern Ireland, Kosovo, Iraq - when they were at their worst.
He had aggression problems, drinking problems, gambling problems, couldn't hold down a job and had developed a deep-set mistrust of any non-caucasian - the army conditions you to dehumanize the enemy, although xenophobia occurs naturally in many. As one of my other friends was part Burmese, this was a problem. He had extensive counselling - no effect.
So, naturally, we took him to a rave/free party that my friends were putting on, hehe. During the course of the night he took some MDMA, danced like a loon and chatted the ear off of many people from many ethnic backgrounds until the sun came back up.
I bumped into him a few weeks later: he walked up to me and shook my hand. He said that he felt like he could relate to people again, more people than ever before; that he felt like his anxiety and anger had been lifted from him. He was less cynical about his future - hopeful even. It was completely evident in his appearance, like a sea change.
We didn't expect this effect, we didn't plan for it and couldn't have predicted it - it just something that happened in the course of life. He didn't become a druggy or a raver, he knocked about with us for a bit but then got married to his ex-gf and I didn't see much more of him. He got his life back on track thanks to that one night out.
Anecdotal, of course but quite relevant to why MDMA employed in a controlled therapy session wight not be such a bad thing.