Month: November 2011

Down to Earth: Rick Doblin on MAPS’ Day-to-Day Operations and Basic Philosophies

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During the first installment of our three-part interview with Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) Founder and Executive Director Rick Doblin, the visionary nonprofit head explained that his organization’s “mission is to conduct scientific research into psychedelics and marijuana and their therapeutic potential, to develop them into legal prescription medicines.” Points wanted to hear from Doblin more about MAPS’ unique purpose and how Doblin and staff set about fulfilling it on a daily basis. Doblin can’t help launching into explanations of the historical context that informs that work, so we managed to get another dose of psychedelic oral history out of him, as well. We spoke further about the kinds of drugs into which MAPS is looking, their promising potential uses, and what exactly “prescription psychedelics” look like. The second installment of Points’ engaging interview with Doblin appears below.

Points: We touched briefly on MAPS works to fulfill its mission earlier, but I know there’s a lot more to be said. If the bulk of your work is researching clinical and therapeutic uses for psychedelic drugs, can you talk about some of those uses?

MDMA shows promising results in PTSD treatment.

Doblin: Well, our top priority project is MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for post-traumatic stress disorder. MDMA reduces fear: it reduces activation in the amygdala, the fear processing centers of the brain. It increases activation in the prefrontal cortex, where people put things in context, so people can tell then from now, and can overcome the fear that has blocked them from integrating the traumatic experience. We have an international series of Phase II pilot studies: In the United States we’ve completed one; in Switzerland, we’ve got one on-going; [we have one in] Israel; [and] another study in the US underway with veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder. We’re trying to start a new study in the US to evaluate our female/male co-therapist team, that would include a graduate student intern as one of the two therapists. We’ve got a study in Canada, and we’re working to start a study in Jordan. We’ve got other projects in Australia and England in the early stages of development.

There have also been projects with MDMA for cancer patients with anxiety. There’s been a study at Harvard to help people deal with fearful emotions around dying. We have a study with LSD with people who are dying that we have just completed in Switzerland, the world’s first therapeutic study of LSD in about 40 years. We’ve got projects that are about to start with MDMA where we are going to put out a request for proposals for protocols for MDMA for Aspberger’s and autism. There are a lot of reports on the internet of people with Asperger’s who have done MDMA recreationally and found it to be helpful for them.

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The Points Interview: Christopher Snowdon

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After a bit of a break, the “Points Interview” feature returns this week.  Christopher Snowdon becomes the eighteenth author to face the relentless grilling for which this feature has become so well known.  Christopher joins us to discuss his book, The Art of Suppression: Pleasure, Panic and Prohibition Since 1800 (2011) [an arresting cover design, by the way!].  He’s also the author of Velvet Glove, Iron Fist (2009), which examines the history of anti-smoking activity from the 15th century to the present day.  He’s a blogger as well, and those of you interested in seeing more should check out his Velvet Glove, Iron Fist blog.

Describe your book in terms your mother (or the average mother-in-the-street) could understand.
The Art of Suppression seeks to draw a character profile of The Prohibitionist. It offers five Cover of The Art of Suppression bookcase studies – two about alcohol, two about drugs and one about tobacco – spanning 200 years and covering various countries, but particularly the USA and the UK. I wanted to see how substances—which is to say ‘drugs’ in the modern sense of the word: narcotics, stimulants, alcohol and tobacco—get demonised and become illegal. How does this happen? More importantly, who makes it happen?

There is something fascinating and mildly comic about people who dedicate their short time on Earth to stopping other people doing things. This is not an impulse I can relate to—although maybe I’m in the minority in that respect—and I’m intrigued by what compels them. There are a few cranks and oddballs in the book, as you might expect, but more often they’re well-meaning monomaniacs who have a very rigid sense of morality and a heightened sense of idealism.

What the book does is bring these different types of prohibition together to find common themes. It’s not really a book about the substances themselves, nor even the people who take them, but about the moral entrepreneurs who believe they can eradicate them. There are differences between them, of course, but I would say there are more similarities than differences, and whether the subject is opium-smoking in 19th century China or alcohol prohibition in Finland, there are lessons that can be applied to our circumstances today.

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Far Out: Psychedelic History with Rick Doblin, Founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)

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The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) is not your typical drug policy reform organization. Since 1986, MAPS has worked as a nonprofit pharmaceutical company to turn psychedelic drugs into prescription medicines to treat afflictions — including postraumatic stress disorder, pain, depression, and even addiction — for which conventional therapies offer little relief. The term “prescription psychedelics” may sound like something out of a 70s science fiction story — politically impossible and culturally strange — until you hear it explained in context by Rick Doblin, MAPS’ founder and executive director.

Points is pleased to have had the opportunity to speak with Doblin about his organization’s relationship to past psychedelic research efforts, its major goals and day-to-day operations (Part II), and the philosophy of addiction and recovery that informs its work (Part III). We proudly present below the first installment of a three-part interview we will showcase over the next week in celebration of MAPS’ 25th anniversary this year. Today, we’ll hear about Doblin’s thoughts on the organization’s first 25 years and MAPS’ place within the larger context of psychedelic movements past and present.  

Points: Hi, Rick. We’re really glad to have you here. First, could you explain a little bit about MAPS’ work and its mission? In other words, what does MAPS do on a daily basis and what do you want that work to accomplish in a larger sense?

MAPS Founder Rick Doblin

Rick Doblin: MAPS’ mission is to conduct scientific research into psychedelics and marijuana and their therapeutic potential, to develop them into legal prescription medicines. A lot of our work is trying to design studies, get permission for studies, raise money for studies, and then conduct them. And then our broader mission is to educate the public honestly about the risks and benefits of these drugs and to establish a network of psychedelic clinics whereby these substances would actually be administered to patients. What we’re finding is that unfortunately, because the drugs are controversial and because the drugs are illegal, there’s a lot of difficulty, particularly with marijuana, in getting permission to do the research. And though we can get permission with psychedelics, there are challenges with funding. But the most important thing to say about this is that the FDA has decided to put science before politics unlike the DEA, NIDA, or the drug czar’s office. So we have the opening, and our mission is really to try to take the fact that all drugs have risks and benefits and develop contexts whereby the benefits of psychedelics and marijuana can be taken advantage of to help people in a wide range of uses.

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CFP: Addiction: What is the Added Value of the Concept Today?

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The Colloquium of the University of Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies announces a Thematic Meeting of the Kettil Bruun Society, Conference Hotel Majvik, Helsinki, Finland 14-17th October 2012 Background: Addiction is a concept that has relatively recently – within two or three decades – become a common expression that covers no longer only traditional substance …

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Thanksgiving Tip from the American Chemical Society

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Just when you wondered what Points could possibly have to say about Thanksgiving, our good friends at the American Chemical Society (many Points authors have done research under their fine auspices) have weighed in with an important message about drugs– or drug lore– related to the holiday.  Turns out it’s not the tryptophan in the …

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Welcome Home: A Journey to Dr. Bob’s House

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"Welcome Home": 855 Ardmore Avenue, Akron, Ohio

“Welcome home,” said the man who greeted us as we stood on the sidewalk in front of the Craftsman-style house.  After a long and rainy drive that had begun early that morning, I was grateful to hear those kind words.  Along with a group of graduate students from the University of Michigan, I had driven to Akron from Ann Arbor to visit the home of Robert and Anne Smith.  As many readers undoubtedly know, Dr. Bob, as he is affectionately called, co-founded the Alcoholics Anonymous fellowship with Bill Wilson.  We had come to see the house as part of a public history class I am teaching this semester, focusing on a proposal that Dr. Bob’s Home be designated a National Historic Landmark (NHL).  For me, this course has been a terrific opportunity to bring together two long-time interests, addiction history and the role of historic places in shaping public memory.  It has also been a wonderfully collaborative enterprise, and some of the reflections I offer below come out of conversations with students.

Students in the class have been learning a great deal about drinking practices, alcoholism, and the treatment of alcoholics in American history.  They have also had to become familiar with federal historic preservation programs—a steep learning curve all around.

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Update: Occupy Oakland

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The Spiritual Monkey has a post today on a new development in Occupy Oakland’s “war on tents”– the takeover of a vacant lot that is in foreclosure proceedings, the status of which will make eviction and camp destruction more complex legally than at the various other Oakland sites.  Of interest to Points readers, however, is …

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Forgotten Drugs of Abuse I: T’s and Blues

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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.  It’s about a new drug, a killer, raging through a major American city filling ERs and morgues and leaving a trail of wrecked lives.  Just a year ago heroin was the big problem, but now this new scourge accounts for three-fourths of drug busts and a third of all addicts seeking treatment.  Experts are saying there’s no way the drug will stay in one city: “similar to an infectious process,” it will inevitably spread across the nation.  It’s already surfaced in a handful of cities, and who knows where it will strike next.

Scourge of Our Cities

The year is 1978, and the Talwin panic is in full swing.

Wait, you don’t remember the great Talwin terror of 1978?  Maybe haven’t even heard of Talwin?  Don’t feel bad.  Despite the promising start, the Talwin scare never really got off the ground.  There were a few headlines here and there, a TV documentary, and a day of testimony in Congress, but in the annals of anti-drug crusades it was small potatoes.

Why?  1978 was a great year for drug crusades, and this one seemed to have plenty going for it:  Talwin really was causing major public health problems in Chicago; it had a hip, media-friendly street name (“T’s and Blues”); and most of its abusers were nonwhite, urban poor—classic drug-war boogeymen.  More:  one of the largest sources of Talwin in Chicago was a Medicaid clinic, where, Congress was told, the drug was “handed out literally like M&Ms.”  The headlines could have written themselves.  “Hard Working Taxpayers’ Dollars Going to Give Dope to Junkies!”  And if that wasn’t enough, how about this sound bite from the Congressional hearings:

Thank you indeed!  “Grandmothers are buying Talwin on the street”:  does it get any better than that for an anti-drug crusader? It wasn’t supposed to end up like that for Talwin. 

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