Rick Doblin was born on
November 30, 1953 and is known for wanting MDMA (or Ecstasy) to become
FDA-approved. He obtained his psychology degree in 1987 from New College of
Florida and earned a doctorate in public policy in 2001 from Kennedy School of
Government, Harvard University. He is a founder and executive director at
Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS).
Before all this he began experimenting with LSD and
mescaline, soon he dropped out of school and worked in construction for ten
years. When he returned to college, he tried MDMA at a workshop for personal
self-discovery. His experience MDMA was
a better one than LSD, the introduction to MDMA allowed him to be open and look
deep at himself, and was gentler than LSD. The experience gave him focus on
treating PTSD and terminally ill patients with drug. In this time the DEA made MDMA illegal, which
redirected Doblin in earning his Ph.D. in clinical psychology to his Ph.D. in
public policy.
His path changed and wrote his dissertation on
He set up MAPS to research and develop a therapeutic use of
the once legal drug, ecstasy (MDMA). He wanted to find a way to work with the
Food and Drug Administration, which meant they needed to develop it as a prescription
medicine and bring MDMA back to being legal in some context, using MAPS as a
non-profit pharmaceutical company. By
founding MAPS he has helped researchers like Michael and Ann Mithoefer, conduct
research on MDMA and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.
Do you think that the FDA will allow MDMA use in psychotherapy for patients with PTSD? Do you think that Dolin is crazy for even thinking that it will become legal? What do you think would need to be done for the FDA to make it legal?
Excellent post, Crystal and terrific questions! As much as I would hope that Will Doblin is correct in his prediction, I just can’t see doctors prescribing MDMA as soon as 2021. There is still a huge stigma attached to MDMA and I imagine that its risk of being abused would be very high. We are in 2014 and people still debate about marijuana. I believe providing facts and education about MDMA to the public will remove some of the fear that is associated with this substance. This means more research will need to be conducted before being able to win over public opinion.
ReplyDeleteCrystal, great post! I just made a comment on another classmates post whether I thought marijuana users should be convicted like a murderer... As for your topic, I think that MDMA should be legal in order to help those in need with a mental illness. As for your question; Will Doblin prediction come true, that doctors could begin legally prescribing MDMA by 2021? I think that with marijuana being legal in some states, I think that it will eventually will be legal I just don't if that soon. But, yes I do see it being a prescribed medication for soldiers coming back from war.
ReplyDeleteDo you think that Dolin is crazy for even thinking that it will become legal? No, I do not think it is crazy. I think that it is crazy that were not trying everything to help those with mental illnesses.
What do you think would need to be done for the FDA to make it legal? I think that with more soldiers being open to being part of a study, in trying MDMA that it will give the FDA concrete evidence in making a definitive decision.
(By the way, good questions!)
I think that people like Doblin who are willing to work for their whole life towards a goal like making MDMA legal for psychology treatments are what is needed for it to become legal. These kinds of people keep pushing and pushing for more research to be done on the drug because they know that once this reserach is complete the good benefits will become obvious. Then this reserach can be used to convince the people who want to keep it illegal that MDMA should be seen as a medicine and not an illegal drug, like how Adderall is a medical version of a drug that is like cocaine.
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