Could a party drug help cure veterans' PTSD?

December 7, 2015

Before it was known as ecstasy, MDMA was a promising tool in psychotherapy; now, researchers are trying to bring it back

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Could a party drug help cure veterans' PTSD?

In the past few years, the movement to legalize marijuana for medical purposes has become mainstream, with several states passing laws to allow its use for a broad variety of conditions. Yet there's another class of drugs that, despite showing huge potential to treat everything from PTSD to end-of-life anxiety, remain illegal. LSD, psilocybin and MDMA all performed well in clinical trials during the 1960s, but research into their benefits came to a halt in 1970 when President Richard Nixon signed the Controlled Substance Act. Now, there are signs that the federal government is softening its stance towards these drugs. In this America Tonight excerpt, Christof Putzel speaks with people who say leaving research on the table is doing more harm than good.


 

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