taking MDMA for the rest of your life

[Zen Peddler]

If there was no restrictions on any psychoactive substance and if you could easily obtain mdma, would you take it daily for the rest of your life? DO you actually believe the studies that report adverse health consequences? Would you care? Would the world be a better place? Would MDMA lift humanity out of the animal and firmly place it at a higher leve of development based on love rather than fear?

[Eluna]

Would not, based on the health consequences.

[Zen Peddler]

And what are they? What can be demonstrated to be the health consequences of longterm MDMA usage? Are they worse than long term nicotine or alcohol exposure?

[chnt]

i'd take it but not every day

i think it would make the world a better place if everyone took it

Edited July 15, 2011 by chnt

[Zen Peddler]

imagine it was the social drug of abuse as opposed to alcohol. imagine what pubs would be like if everyone was e'ing...

[random]

Escapism although appealing doesn't appeal to me as a daily luxury that i'd care to pursue. I like living in the sober world too much.

[Zen Peddler]

Wow you must have a better job than me...

[Torsten]

After the tens [if not hundreds] of millions of dollars thrown at research specifically designed to prove the harmfulness of MDMA and the fact that so far they haven't been able to find anything for occasional use, I'd feel comfortable taking it on a regular basis if I needed or wanted to. But I also don't want to. I'd be happy with just occasional use. Then again, if I developed parkinsons I wouldn't hesitate to use it daily [or thereabouts] as a medicine.

I feel about that with all drugs. I don't let hysteria, misinformation and taboo guide my personal decisions if the science tells me something different. As I get older I'd err on the side of caution generally, but if there is one drug that we know [thanks to the hysteria over-funded research] that is quite obviously pretty safe then that would be MDMA.

In a way I am glad governments and interest groups have thrown so much money at trying to prove otherwise, because without that we'd still be guessing.

[Zen Peddler]

LOL - well said. My thinking exactly.

[Undergrounder]

Like all drugs I would be worried about downregulation of (seratonin) receptors? Surely you couldn't take the thing daily and not run into addiction/abuse and health problems.

But weekly, bi-weekly, monthly (whatever) I would probably use it. If it ever became legal I like the idea of having 20mg or so in a 'standard drink', instead of alcohol. Maybe that would be a handy way to get thoroughly loved up over a night with some kind of limit on intake.

As far as socially acceptable drugs, I think it's a million times better than alcohol.

It's the shit quality and russian roulette of unknown substances in 'ecstasy' pills that makes it dangerous IMO. The pure stuff should be legal. Imagine if we lived in a society where MDMA was the cultural norm instead of alcohol, and taking it (responsibly) had the same kind of cultural importance as alcohol does now. That would be a better world to live in.

Then again, if I developed parkinsons I wouldn't hesitate to use it daily [or thereabouts] as a medicine.

Torsten what's the link here? My dad has Parkinson's, it's getting quite bad now. But I thought Parkinson's affected Dopamine not Seratonin?

[Torsten]

Torsten what's the link here? My dad has Parkinson's, it's getting quite bad now. But I thought Parkinson's affected Dopamine not Seratonin?

 

MDMA affects both dopamine and serotonin. Dopamine for the rush and serotonhin for the wobbly knees and eyes rolling back in your head ;)

A few years ago an ex-stuntman took a pill on some current affairs program to show that mdma can give relief from PD for a number of hours. he was quite severe, but regained total control for the 4 hour duration. It spawned several research trials, including one that ignored the fact mdma affects dopamine and hence spent millions of dollars trying to prove that PD is a serotonin dysfunction. Money well spent .

I can't find any clips of he english version, but here is a link to the german version. if you flick through it you cans ee how poor his motor control is normally, but when he takes mdma his symptoms almost vanish. For me, even if taking MDMA accelerates the condition [which was the immediate anti-drug warning that seems to have been unfounded] I'd rather have a shorter live and get some quality hours into each day then to live like that 24/7.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37VHUNWUTnA

here is his personal account:

http://ecstasy.org/info/parkinsons.html

[TheExplorer]

I wouldn't take it more than weekly. I think it would lose its magic if you did it more often.

Man, what I would do for some decent MDMA , it's been way too long.

[Alchemica]

I wouldn't do MDMA everyday and I have relatively little regard or respect for my long-term health (aiming to be here for a good and worthwhile time, not a long time - never felt like life was something "wonderful"). It simply isn't possible to sustain the magic, empathic and prosocial benefits IMO. Chronic doses in humans apparently lose serotonergic influence quite rapidly and become simply a mild stimulant (which is said to be still rewarding enough to potentially cause habituation). Contrary to some of the opinions of others here, I do think it holds real potential for long-lasting negative effects if abused (extremely frequent use, high-doses and "top-ups", no chance for physiological, psychological and neurological recovery, elevated ambient temperature, over-exertion, multiple substance use etc). I'd say anything more than once a month is likely to not only reduce the benefits one could experience but possibly also leave lingering deficits of some form in many users. I wouldn't be surprised if those who really find MDMA therapeutic to the point of making life "enjoyable" for once (that is, those lacking meaning in life, suffering depression or impaired sociability) are particularly sensitive to potential negative neuroadaptive, (oxidative) stress, and degenerative consequences. It could even be a psychological deficit that is the greatest demon; being at one with the Self and others, happy or experiencing a sense of belonging under the peak experience, then having to endure the negative feelings of losing that state of mind upon return to baseline, or with failed attempts to replicate the experience with successive doses. There are potentially ways of reducing possible negative consequences and they might allow for more frequent use without significant harm but I think individual differences and personality are still notable contributors to negative effects.

Theoretically, most people should find that it is generally self-limiting. Once the positive effects become out-weighed by negatives, that tends to be a clear indication that one should give it a break.I could imagine that rather than selfishly dosing yourself every day with limited benefit, sharing the experience freely with good company and soaking up the "contact high" would be much more beneficial for all involved.

I would however consider, if I had the option to legally do so, trying something like low dose a-methyltryptamine (or AET) for lifting my hedonic set-point. Both are deemed "neurotoxic" but were once used as antidepressants in some countries.

"Non-neurotoxic" options might theoretically be more sensible than MDMA, IMO. Something like MMA, said to "produce empathy and mild 2C-like psychedelic effects, and although it is mood-lifting, it is not euphoric like MDMA and is more antidepressant-like in comparison".

...Rat brain monoamine levels were unaltered 1 week following a single high dose, or two weeks following a subacute dosing regimen (20 mg/kg, sc, twice a day for 4 days). In addition, radioligand-binding parameters in rat brain homogenate with the 5-HT uptake inhibitor [3H]paroxetine were unchanged after subacute dosing. The results indicate that the compound has animal behavioral pharmacology similar to the methylenedioxy compounds, but that they do not induce the serotonin neurotoxicity that has been observed for the latter two drugs...

Like all drugs I would be worried about downregulation of (seratonin) receptors?

Sensitization to MDMA locomotor effects and changes in the functionality of 5-HT2A and D2 receptors in mice.

 

As for feeling good more often: Considering those Pastafarian religious zealots are getting away with colander headware, I think it should be perfectly acceptable to wear headware consisting of rTMS coils, implanted brain electrodes and i.c.v drug delivery cannulas rigged to electronic metered drug pumps in celebration of the one and only All-mighty that is Science. For enhancement 24hrs a day, simply satisfy your thirst for pleasure with electrical DBS stimulation of reward pathways, juice up i.c.v cannulas delivering pure hedonism directly into your brain and tweak the transcranial magnetic impulses to taste. All going well, one should be able to do away with those all too often disappointing natural sources of pleasure - friends, achievement, status, love etc.

Edited July 15, 2011 by Alchemica

[Undergrounder]

MDMA affects both dopamine and serotonin. Dopamine for the rush and serotonhin for the wobbly knees and eyes rolling back in your head ;)

A few years ago an ex-stuntman took a pill on some current affairs program to show that mdma can give relief from PD for a number of hours. he was quite severe, but regained total control for the 4 hour duration. It spawned several research trials, including one that ignored the fact mdma affects dopamine and hence spent millions of dollars trying to prove that PD is a serotonin dysfunction. Money well spent .

I can't find any clips of he english version, but here is a link to the german version. if you flick through it you cans ee how poor his motor control is normally, but when he takes mdma his symptoms almost vanish. For me, even if taking MDMA accelerates the condition [which was the immediate anti-drug warning that seems to have been unfounded] I'd rather have a shorter live and get some quality hours into each day then to live like that 24/7.

here is his personal account:

http://ecstasy.org/info/parkinsons.html

 

Thanks for the link, very interesting (and inspiring) read!

Interestingly in that written account, he mentions that he underwent a radioactive dye test while on MDMA and apparently they found MDMA gave no increase in dopamine. The story then goes on to talk about the idea that Seratonin was causing the relief of his symptoms.

I know that Parkinson's itself affects dopamine in a particular part of the brain that is responsible for initiating movement. The main symptom of Parkinson's is difficulty moving, not tremors. Left untreated, Parkinson's would leave you bed-ridden and unable to move completely. The tremors are actually a side-effect of L-Dopa, the drug commonly used to treat Parkinson's. So when you see someone with Parkinson's shaking, it's a side-effect of the treatment, not the disease itself.

Taking MDMA apparently helped this guy with the symptoms of L-Dopa (severe tremors and dyskenesia), while also going some way to increasing movement even without the L-Dopa.

This is all good news. Perhaps that is something to keep in mind down the track if his symptoms get worse.. (SSRIs not MDMA - I just don't think he'd go for that).

P.S. maybe the reason the research was looking at Seratonin was as a treatment for L-Dopa induced dyskenesia associated with advanced Parkinson's:

ScienceDaily (Feb. 6, 2008) — For most people with Parkinson's disease, the only relief from the tremors, rigidity and impaired movement associated with the progressive loss of their motor skills is a drug called L-DOPA. But as the disease progresses, L-DOPA can cause prominent side effects that counteract its effectiveness.

Now, Rockefeller University's Paul Greengard and colleagues in Sweden provide evidence that serotonin, a well-studied neurotransmitter involved in regulating mood, appetite, sexuality and sleep, also plays a crucial role in Parkinson's disease. Using a mouse model of the disease, Greengard's team shows that side effects associated with repeated L-DOPA treatment can be blocked by manipulating a specific serotonin receptor.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080204200320.htm

That makes sense.

thanks again.

[ballzac]

I'd probably have it once or twice a year with my girlfriend. I'm not sure I actually like it that much, and I don't think it would be good for my mental health if I had it too often. I always felt that the rush - no matter how hard you are actually rushing - never quite feels like its where you wanna be. It feels like if it was just that bit stronger you'd be in bliss. So that leads to taking more. Eventually it wears off and I'm left feeling a bit dazed, and if I've been out in public I generally feel pretty embarrassed with the way I behaved while I was on it, especially if I had a couple of drinks too.

But yeah, I'd love to see society's nightlife shift from binge drinking to binge e'ing. I think it's much healthier physically and mentally, and the crime would go down considerably.

[Undergrounder]

As for feeling good more often: Considering those Pastafarian religious zealots are getting away with colander headware, I think it should be perfectly acceptable to wear headware consisting of rTMS coils, implanted brain electrodes and i.c.v drug delivery cannulas rigged to electronic metered drug pumps in celebration of the one and only All-mighty that is Science. For enhancement 24hrs a day, simply satisfy your thirst for pleasure with electrical DBS stimulation of reward pathways, juice up i.c.v cannulas delivering pure hedonism directly into your brain and tweak the transcranial magnetic impulses to taste. All going well, one should be able to do away with those all too often disappointing natural sources of pleasure - friends, achievement, status, love etc.

 

To be fair I think there's a difference between MDMA and other pleasure inducing drugs (or headgear). It is an empathogen and that is different to most dopamine-acting drugs that act purely on reward and pleasure. Sure cocaine and heroin might fit your tin hat hedonism analogy, but the experience of MDMA actually makes you want to seek out friendships/achievements/status/love, that's the point.

[ballzac]

To be fair I think there's a difference between MDMA and other pleasure inducing drugs (or headgear). It is an empathogen and that is different to most dopamine-acting drugs that act purely on reward and pleasure. Sure cocaine and heroin might fit your tin hat hedonism analogy, but the experience of MDMA actually makes you want to seek out friendships/achievements/status/love, that's the point.

 

IMHO those feelings are just a neediness that we have while on the drug because it boosts our own ego to feel those kind of connections with people. I don't think it's actually about loving other people at all, even if it feels like it at the time.

[Undergrounder]

hmmm ... interesting thought ...

I think I disagree though. Yeah there's a certain fakeness to it, and there's nothing worse than seeing someone going overboard with the whole loved up thing.

But for lots of people I think it's genuine. I don't know... something to think about.

Edited July 15, 2011 by Undergrounder

[nabraxas]

once every month or two would be fine w/me.

chance would be a fine thing. it's been nearly 2 years now without the sniff ov a decent pill

[ballzac]

On a low dose I can explore that aspect of myself, and in effect make it genuine. But the higher the dose, the more it's all gotta be centred around me. I want people to be happy, but I'm not satisfied unless it's me causing them to be happy. If you're around people who are on e and you're sober, you can see all the one-upmanship of generosity. People trying to outdo each other in their niceness and generosity in order get the attention.

I really don't see anything empathetic about MDMA. Empathy is about experiencing another person's suffering. Feeling all lovey and blissful and like the world is wonderful is not empathy. DXM, DMT, Mushrooms, LSD are all capable of inducing or enhancing experiences of empathy, but not MDMA. You can be on your way home from a club at 5AM and you get on a train and start a conversation with a guy who's half asleep cos he just got up and he's on his way to work. He doesn't want to talk to you, but your oblivious because you expect everyone to be in your world. That's not empathy.

Of course I'm open to the possibility that it's different for different people, but from what I've experienced, and what I see other's behave like, I think most people are fooling themselves when they think their e-love is about others and not about themselves. Of course one could then start to question what love is and maybe all love is about our own needs and maybe MDMA just amplifies that. I'd rather think that the love I feel when sober is real, and maybe there's some complicated shit that surrounds it too, but at the core there's something real and selfless. Maybe that essence is still there on MDMA, but I think it's actually clouded by all the ego stuff.

it's been nearly 2 years now without the sniff ov a decent pill

I haven't even bothered in recent years. I think I've had maybe 3 pills in the last five years and they were all piperazines or something, and considering that youngsters these days call them good pills, my guess is that the real stuff is rarely about, at least in the mainstream.

[Alice]

I think I disagree though. Yeah there's a certain fakeness to it, and there's nothing worse than seeing someone going overboard with the whole loved up thing.

But for lots of people I think it's genuine. I don't know... something to think about.

 

Exactly. I probably would take it now and then but certainly not regularly. I myself found that it really did cheapen the whole experience having it to often. The "fakeness" of it as Underground said, is a very good description. I think we all start out genuine but it becomes harder to convince yourself. Or maybe I just got bored with the people/conversations after a few rounds. I guess there's only so many deep and meaningfuls you can have with a person lol.

Having said that, and with no real desire to take it again, I think it is still a very worthwhile drug, and probably everyone deserves to experience the magic of those first few good pills at least once in their lifetime.

[Slybacon]

Nice late night thread. You owls!

I found you lose the sparkle after a while. In the late Nineties "when pills were good" I did way too many. After a while they seem to lose that sparkle that we all chase and you just tend to be left with a burnt out feeling. I think I would like to alternate, AMT was a very nice MDMA replacement for me. Seemed to have more mental depth too. Less of the empathy but really allowed you to think about things clearly. AMT is best when taken with some travel calm. They even prescribed it in russia unsuccessfully for a while.

[hamma]

The strange case of the man who took 40,000 ecstasy pills in nine years Edited July 16, 2011 by hamma

[Alchemica]

I myself found that it really did cheapen the whole experience having it to often. The "fakeness" of it as Underground said, is a very good description. I think we all start out genuine but it becomes harder to convince yourself.

The following article might be of interest to others, mainly dealing with traditional antidepressants but still interesting, particularly the "...making them feel ‘like themselves’ for the first time in their lives" aspect. Are we simply dismissing the authenticity of the MDMA experience because it is not sustainable and vastly different from consensus reality? Company, set and setting makes a huge difference. At sensible doses, things like talking and getting to know friends on a deeper level, "couples/lovers therapy" etc might be more conducive to genuine, albeit unique and beneficial experiences?

Authenticity Anyone? The Enhancement of Emotions via Neuro-Psychopharmacology

This article will examine how the notion of emotional authenticity is intertwined with the notions of naturalness and artificiality in the context of the recent debates about ‘neuro-enhancement’ and ‘neuro-psychopharmacology.’ In the philosophy of mind, the concept of authenticity plays a key role in the discussion of the emotions. There is a widely held intuition that an artificial means will always lead to an inauthentic result. This article, however, proposes that artificial substances do not necessarily result in inauthentic emotions. The literature provided by the philosophy of mind on this subject usually resorts to thought experiments. On the other hand, the recent literature in applied ethics on ‘enhancement’ provides good reasons to include real world examples. Such case studies reveal that some psychotropic drugs such as antidepressants actually cause people to undergo experiences of authenticity, making them feel ‘like themselves’ for the first time in their lives. Beginning with these accounts, this article suggests three non-naturalist standards for emotions: the authenticity standard, the rationality standard, and the coherence standard. It argues that the authenticity standard is not always the only valid one, but that the other two ways of assessing emotions are also valid, and that they can even have repercussions on the felt authenticity of emotions. In conclusion, it sketches some of the normative implications if not ethical intricacies that accompany the enhancement of emotions.

[Teljkon]

On 15/07/2011 at 8:21 AM, Zen Peddler BlueGreenie said:

imagine it was the social drug of abuse as opposed to alcohol. imagine what pubs would be like if everyone was e'ing...

sdfsdfsd

Edited December 19, 2021 by Teljkon