After decades of research and advocacy, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), led by Rick Doblin, has moved into the final stages of its work pushing for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). MAPS and the FDA have agreed on the design of the Phase III trials and, if successful, the drug could be available as a legally prescribed treatment for PTSD sufferers as soon as 2021.
First synthesized in 1912, 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) was rediscovered in the mid-1970s by pioneering psychopharmacologist Alexander Shulgin. Informal self-trials by Shulgin and his colleagues identified the drug as compellingly psychoactive and possibly useful for psychotherapy.
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