America rejected MDMA, but Australia didn’t. Here’s why psychedelics have been embraced Down Under

In Sydney, Australia, Rebecca Hintley was seeking advanced psychological care for thirty years when I heard from a two -edged friend, otherwise her experience in treatment with MDMA. at that time , MDMAAlso known as the Drug Ecstasy Party, it was banned in Australia Since 1987Despite the research that indicates The drug can treat mental illness. But Rebecca’s friend connected to an underground processor that provides this service to chosen customers. After a strict examination, the first session took place at the Rebecca house, a quiet place surrounded by trees.

“I felt that I needed something other than what I was doing,” she said to the Salon newspaper. “I was grinding my gears in terms of my mental health; I was very angry all the time. So I thought I would give it.”

“It seems as if you had jumped forward at the speed of light to an accelerated point on the mental health journey,” Rebecca added. “For me, especially the first session that issued a huge amount of pain, sadness and sadness that I was spending for years in an attempt to push my consciousness. The next day, after the medicine came out of my regime to a large extent, I woke up to the feeling as if I woke up in a different kind of The body, the body is quieter, and a more accumulated body.

Then it was a six -month operation, including two other trips with MDMA integration sessions and follow -up to understand the experiment. Rebecca wrote a book, “Sssafras“About her journey.

She said: “It is about the generation of my three children in terms of their truly changing experiences.”

In 2023, it became Australia the first The country is in the world to give legitimacy to both psychotherapy with the help of MDMA and Psilocybin, under very specific conditions: MDMA for PTSD, and Psilocybin (The drug in “magic” mushrooms) for treatment resistant depression.

In the United States, the narcotic renaissance was led by the attractive Rick Dublin and his multidisciplinary bond for narcotic studies (maps), whose leading clinical studies have appeared appear to appear Amazing results In the treatment of post -trauma disorder with MDMA. The property can Motivating patients away from inhibition and anxietyAnd that can be useful for therapists trying to make someone open. Doblin believes that the drugs can change the world, and Acknowledge publicly This is just like medical marijuana, narcotic therapy was a back leaves.

More than a decade ago, the maps have woven the arm of its drug development to a subsidiary known as the Maps Public Benefit Corporation, later Rename It is Likos treatments. But last year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) unacceptable MDMA as a prescription medicine, takes a problem with the scientific rigor of Likos, which led to both patients and psychological hopes.

“I felt very frustrated by some of the questions that were asked [at the FDA hearing] Dr. Stephen Bright, a drug expert at Edith Kuan University in Barth, Australia, said this indicated that people who ask questions clearly had no real understanding of MDMA. “There were fears that people might have problems with other materials after giving MDMA, and during the course I studied, we know students not to frame things in this disease model. So it is somewhat frustrated by a prominent American government ministry to promote this model.”

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Since the MDMA medical future in America seems uncertain, are there any lessons that must be learned from Australia?

If America has Rick Dublin, Australia has Peter Hunt and his wife, opera singer Tania de Jong, power A couple behind Mind Medicine Australia (MMA) – mainly maps below. Hunt, a multi -billiac investment banker, was haunted by his father’s loss in front of suicide when he was thirteen years old. The couple was inspired to launch the MMA after a shore of Amsterdam.

“The experience was so strong that we felt that we had to help support the legal development of treatments with the help of anesthetic in Australia and the start of a charity to ensure safe and fair access to these transformational treatments,” Tania told the Salon newspaper.

Like the FDA (FDA), the Australia therapeutic goods department refused to remove MDMA and Psilocybin at the beginning, and the first MMA application in October 2022 refused on the basis that there was not enough evidence, possible health risks, and converting secrecy drugs into black into Black Market. But just a few months later, in February, the TGA course was suddenly opposite, Move MDMA from Table 9, for prohibited materials such as heroin, to Table 8, a category for its control.

To get this, MMA fill a huge messaging campaign, and overwhelmed TGA with More than 3000 requests Among the individuals who describe how the materials helped them or why they should be legal. It mainly consisted of personal and not professional views, but it seems that this was sufficient for the impact of the decision.

Quoting a new drug research, TGA finally allowed MDMA and Psilocybin in a therapeutic context. Parking researchers like Professor David Note, a famous neuroscientist from the Imperial College College in London, flew to show his support. The decision was still controversial for some experts who to caution Against rushing forward because the anesthetic is not for everyone, and some weak patients may actually end worse after a trip. Meanwhile, the skeptical TGA was accused of expressing peer pressure (“” C’Mon Tga, Be Cool “). Tga answered that the benefits I excelled Risks.

Tania rejected these criticisms as “nonsense”.

She said: “There is a lot of clinical experimental evidence to support the safe and effective use of these treatments in clinical environments.” “We have an increasingly mental health epidemic in Australia with an estimated 1 in every 4 people suffering from mental illness. There were no fundamental innovations in mental health treatments for more than 50 years. While more research is important – we financially support a number of experiments Innovative – the argument that we do not have sufficient data to support limited access in high -supervisory clinical environments are not valid in view of the amount of supportive evidence and high levels of suffering.

Why did Tga prove more flexible than FDA?

Our efforts to call on a limited Tania explained that the reschedule of MDMA and Psilocybin as unregistered drugs, while the maps were following the MDMA recording. “With registration in the United States, MDMA is likely to be more widely available for PTSD and can be used on stickers for other relevant mental illness as there is research support for this, while MDMA in Australia, as an unregistered drug, is only available for For patients with trauma and psychiatrists, I must apply for a permit to become a “approved description”. “

This model, according to Tania, is more restricted than it has been proposed in the states, but it allows each doctor to prescribe. But only those who are blessed by the Ethics Committee may become an accredited description.

“Most psychiatrists do not have the type of experience in research so that they can write a protocol that will be approved by the Ethics Committee, and this is why it is really limited to the number of describing qualities in Australia,” Breet explained.

As a result, the show was slow – with First at all The non-research medical prescription for 180 mg of MDMA was written only by Melbourne doctor in January last year-at an expensive price. Clarion clinics, Australia The first special The anesthetic treatment center that opened in February last year, receives the shipping of the eye 27000 Australian dollars (about 16,500 USD) for a full period for a period of nine months, and is out of reaching most Australians. Medical marijuana is also legal in Australia, but it is very prohibited 78 % From patients still records from merchants.

“I am concerned that people who are sacrificing will not be able to reach it – and desperate people will do desperate things,” said Bright. “What worries me that people will reach these treatments either in an underground place or try a DIY approach, and this may lead to damage. We have already seen a significant increase in calls to the MDMA hotline and other anesthetic.”

Molly entertainment entertainment in Australia is still manufactured or imported by crime coins such as ‘ndranghetaMafia clans from southern Italy, which made their wealth in the drug game in Australia by The growing weeds In remote areas. In 2016, Pasquale Barbaro, the descendant of the mob family behind them plot To smuggle 15 million tablets of euphoria weighing 4.4 tons hidden in fried tomato boxes, was Release By a motorcycle gang while leaving the friend’s home in Sydney. And since the drug is prohibited, there is nothing inside, and it is often mixed with other materials: recently, the party owners in festivals have been victims Natalzine poisoningIndustrial opium.

“I think early evidence is that it can, again, change life, so I am very excited,” said Rebecca. “But I must say that there is some fear about how it walks and who will get it. Of course, there is under the huge ground … my treatment with which I worked is just first -class; very good, very diligent, very professional … but there are people who are not Likewise, there are people who are not really due to the care.

There are also efforts to reduce cost.

“The MMA created a box to support patients to help the needy who cannot withstand the costs of treatment by up to 50 % of the costs provided to the treatment program that is covered by the box,” said Tania. “In addition, we see that the financiers start supporting treatments. The work cover and NDIS supported a treatment for some patients, the Ministry of Old Warriors Affairs has announced that it will begin to evaluate applications for financing by the end of March 2025, and the multiple private health insurance companies are experimental programs for their members. “

Another company, Emeria, Treatment experiences with free MDMA help to the first respondents to struggle with PTSD.

Another risk can arise is moral panic. Certainly, the media has an incentive to use exciting drugs, followed by calls to ban this “sick filth”, but the ban is definitely Do not provide any solutions to the mental health crisis Or in fact stopped drug use. In 2001, Australia’s injection facility is underway The unification of the church Opened in King’s Cross, Sydney – an area in the center of the overdose crisis, where she got 10 % of all deaths in the country.

This was the place that the anesthetic consumers could pump safely under the supervision of the trained medical staff. Anyone can attend an overdose immediately. A few years later, dozens of two syringes that are scattered in the street over its first page. It turns out that the needles used actually belong to the owners a Diabetes cat His name is Trotsky, who left for moments of garbage without observation only until he was leaked by correspondents.

“I am very positive, but of course as we know with these things, there is a lot of stigma about the medicine and a lot of nonsense about mental health, so that they can all collapse,” unlike Rebecca. “I feel that the world looks at us and says, as you know, how can Australia do that? So I don’t really want us to create it!”