June 12, 2020
Psychedelic Breakthroughs, $10M Bets, Treating PTSD with MDMA | Rick Doblin on The Tim Ferriss Show
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Check out The Tim Ferriss Show Episode Page & Show Notes
Key Takeaways
- Rick founded MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) as a non-profit organization in 1986 to raise awareness and understanding of psychedelic substance
- 56% of patients no longer required treatment for PTSD after two months of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy
- “Most subjects received just two to three sessions of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy” – Tim Ferriss
- The average patient in the study suffered from PTSD for 17.8 YEARS before being treated and healed with MDMA
- “Most subjects received just two to three sessions of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy” – Tim Ferriss
- Taking MDMA releases the association of trauma to a negative memory and makes people feel safer when they recall that incident again
- “The next time that you remember the incident, you remember the incident with a different emotional tone and that can be encoded in new neural pathways in your brian” – Rick Doblin
- You need MDMA and therapy to get the most effective treatment for PTSD
- “It’s not really MDMA, it’s psychotherapy facilitated by MDMA” – Rick Doblin
- MDMA brings unconscious thoughts to the surface, but if you’re not prepared for that you could have a breakdown instead of a breakthrough
Intro
- Rick Doblin, PhD, (@rickdoblin) is the founder and executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)
- Host: Tim Ferriss (@tferriss)
Books Mentioned
- If you’re interested in learning more about psychedelics, Tim recommends reading PiHKAL (Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved): A Chemical Love Story and TiHKAL (Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved): A Continuation by Alexander Shulgin and Ann Shulgin
- The books The Secret Chief: Conversations With a Pioneer of the Underground Psychedelic and The Secret Chief Revealed by Myron J. Stolaroff talk about the underground psychedelic movement
About MAPS
- From the mid-1970s to the ‘80s, about half a million doses of MDMA were legally used as a therapeutic drug by psychiatrists and psychotherapists
- Rick supported the 1980s movement to make MDMA a level three drug which would allow it to be used as a prescriptive medicine, but Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) rejected that recommendation
- Rick founded MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) as a non-profit organization in 1986 to raise awareness and understanding of psychedelic substance
- Rick supported the 1980s movement to make MDMA a level three drug which would allow it to be used as a prescriptive medicine, but Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) rejected that recommendation
The History of MDMA
- What is MDMA?
- MDMA is a synthetic molecule and was invented in 1912 by Merck Pharmaceuticals
- In 1953, the US military was looking for mind-control drugs and tested a series of drugs, including MDMA, on animals
- MDMA is a synthetic molecule and was invented in 1912 by Merck Pharmaceuticals
- A chemist named Sasha Shulgin independently synthesized MDMA
- If you’re interested in learning more about psychedelics, Tim recommends reading PiHKAL (Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved): A Chemical Love Story and TiHKAL (Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved): A Continuation by Alexander Shulgin and Ann Shulgin
- The books The Secret Chief: Conversations With a Pioneer of the Underground Psychedelic and The Secret Chief Revealed by Myron J. Stolaroff talk about the underground psychedelic movement
- Around the mid-1970s, Leo Zeff helped train psychologists and psychotherapists in the use of MDMA
- “It’s there that its therapeutic potential was both discovered and expanded on” – Rick Doblin
- Around the mid-1970s, Leo Zeff helped train psychologists and psychotherapists in the use of MDMA
- “What a lot of people don’t realize is that MDMA was a therapy drug before it became a party drug under the name ecstasy” – Rick Doblin
- Benefits of MDMA:
- People are able to better express themselves
- People become better listeners
- It’s used quite a lot in couples therapy
- “It’s got an enormous wide range of applications and it can be used for post-traumatic stress disorder” – Rick Doblin
How MDMA Treats PTSD
- Who is Jon Lubecky?
- He’s a veteran who served in Iraq, suffered from PTSD, and attempted suicide on multiple occasions
- Out of desperation, he volunteered from an MDMA study. MDMA treated his PTSD and greatly improved his life.
- Now he works as a consultant for MAPS
- Out of desperation, he volunteered from an MDMA study. MDMA treated his PTSD and greatly improved his life.
- He’s a veteran who served in Iraq, suffered from PTSD, and attempted suicide on multiple occasions
- In one study, 56% of patients no longer required treatment for PTSD after two months of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy
- After 12 months, 68% no longer had PTSD
- “Most subjects received just two to three sessions of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy” – Tim Ferriss
- The average patient in the study suffered from PTSD for 17.8 YEARS before being treated and healed with MDMA
- “Most subjects received just two to three sessions of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy” – Tim Ferriss
- After 12 months, 68% no longer had PTSD
- When you take MDMA, you’re actually rewiring your brain
- When mice take MDMA, their brains release oxytocin which helps stimulate new neural connections in pro-social areas of the brain
- In humans, taking MDMA releases association of trauma to a negative memory and makes people safer when they recall that incident again
- “The next time that you remember the incident, you remember the incident with a different emotional tone and that can be encoded in new neural pathways in your brain” – Rick Doblin
- You need MDMA and therapy to get the most effective treatment for PTSD
- “It’s not really MDMA, it’s psychotherapy facilitated by MDMA” – Rick Doblin
Raising $10 Million for MAPS
- Tim Ferriss and several friends have come together to raise $10 million (Tim put in $1 million of his own money) towards MAPS’s goal of $30 million
- If you’d like to get involved, you can donate to MAPS here
- “If you’re looking for a very high leverage asymmetric payoff possibility, this is an excellent place to put money and I do think that a dollar now is worth ten dollars, five years from now” – Tim Ferriss
- If you’d like to get involved, you can donate to MAPS here
- The funds will push MDMA to get approval from the FDA in the US, the Israeli Ministry of Health, and health authorities in Canada
- MAPS currently has 15 phase-three sites
- 11 in the US
- 2 in Israel
- 2 in Canada
- MAPS currently has 15 phase-three sites
- $30 million may seem like a lot of money, but pharmaceuticals companies usually spend hundreds of millions or billions of dollars to get a drug approved
- “In fact, the latest numbers is roughly $2 billion to make a drug into a medicine” – Rick Doblin
- Once MDMA is a legal drug, MAPS will sell it as a public-benefit corporation and profits will get reinvested into the mission of MAPS
- If MDMA, it will likely open up the rest of the psychedelic field up to research
Additional Notes
- MDMA and MDA are similar, but MDMA is more gentle
- A high MDA dosage can cause heart problems and even death
- MDMA brings unconscious thoughts to the surface, but if you’re not prepared for that you could have a breakdown instead of a breakthrough
- For decades, studying MDMA and psychedelics was considered career suicide for scientists
- About 20 veterans commit suicide every day
- About 50,000 people commit suicide every year in the US alone
- “And we need to help them” – Rick Doblin
- About 50,000 people commit suicide every year in the US alone
