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?
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.