enjoy this episode it was fun Brad Burge
is the director of communications at the
Maps Institute he earned his bachelors
and communications in psychology from
Stanford University in 2005 and his
master’s in communication from the
University of California in 2009 his
graduate work focused on the political
scientific and cultural change required
to make illicit drugs into legitimate
medicines he has a long-standing
interest in drug policy reform and
activism Brad let’s get right into a man
how how did you find yourself working
with the maps Institute uh well I really
enjoy and appreciate on the one hand
having a lot to do and maps is certainly
doing that and you know I’ve always had
an interest in science and in psychology
I studied psychology as an undergraduate
at Stanford that was my first major and
then I also studied communication when I
was an undergraduate and so being able
to communicate about psychological and
psychiatric research brings those two
parts of my interests together that’s
just sort of the sort of default the
mainstream reason my academic and
intellectual interests in psychology and
communication communicating about
science to a large public and especially
important science is a very valuable and
important thing to do I think and then
you know for you know psychedelics in
particular and medical marijuana I also
have a personal connection there I am a
medical marijuana patient and that
experience of getting my first medical
marijuana card living in California that
experience of transitioning from using
an illegal drug to a legitimate medicine
just really showed me the power of what
a legal treatment could mean how that
can remove paranoia and help you be
safer help you get better access to
medicine so that experience of being a
medical marijuana patient you know
really
owed me that you know the legal status
of something it’s really important can
you just describe what the Maps
Institute is for the people who may not
know well Maps is a essentially we’re a
nonprofit pharmaceutical company that’s
primarily how we function right now the
difference between maps and other
pharmaceutical companies is one we’re
not trying to make a profit we function
entirely through donations at this point
people who want to see the research
happen you know we’re all so different
in the sense that we’re developing a
very different kind of treatment we’re
not developing drugs that people have to
be hooked on for the rest of their lives
to take every day and then still never
get better but rather we’re developing
treatments through psychedelics that
people only have to use a couple of
times two or three times so that’s the
main focus of our work is developing the
medical applications for psychedelics
and marijuana
in addition to that we also do a lot of
public education about the real risks
and benefits of psychedelics in
marijuana when they are used carefully
and responsibly since there’s been so
much propaganda and misinformation
circulated over the last hundred years
really over marijuana in the last 60
years or so over psychedelics so we’re
trying to counteract a lot of that in
addition to doing the research there
seems to be this legal number of this
dark legal penumbra around discussing
these issues and even in doing this
podcast it the judgment is that here are
two guys just kind of discussing what it
feels like to do drugs yeah that’s
that’s some at that point you make about
this critique of well are you just
talking about drugs or are you just a
drug addict or is that is that all
you’re interested in you know that’s
part of what we’re trying to dismantle
we’re trying to sort of change how
people think about that and stop just
dismissing this category of drugs
psychedelics and marijuana as as drugs
with with no other use than abuse
whereas people are you know seemingly
arbitrarily at least culturally
assigning other drugs that are far more
harmful prescription opiates and other
painkillers Alka
all nicotine all of these things that
are legal drugs and those are somehow
okay so there’s clearly an arbitrary or
historical distinction that we learned
to make and maps is trying to collapse
that distinction by showing hey you know
it’s not about these drugs are bad and
these drugs are good it’s about how
we’re using the drugs and what we’re
doing with them whether they’re being
helpful there or they’re being harmful
so Maps was founded in 1986 map stands
for the multidisciplinary Association
for psychedelic studies which is
definitely a mouthful and sounds really
boring and that’s really the point is we
feel psychedelics are exciting and
enough in and of themselves and they
don’t need a whole lot of hoopla
surrounding them to get attention so we
maps as a nonprofit organization doing
legitimate research was started in 1986
in order to restore psychedelics back to
scientific therapy to scientific
research and therapy you know prior a
lot of people don’t notice actually is
that before they were criminalized in
the late 1970’s and early 1980s
psychedelics including LSD and MDMA were
actually widely used in therapy by
psychiatrists and therapists for things
like couples counseling anxiety even
post-traumatic stress disorder but no
research had been done so by the time
these drugs escaped into the club scene
and started being used and abused on a
widespread basis that research stopped
primarily because funding evaporated and
suddenly it was a very taboo to talk
about it
so Maps is is is working to get those
substances back into a legitimate
mainstream conversation so being able to
talk about them openly in a way that
we’re doing here you know today on your
show yeah I agree completely I really
think it is very important that we have
these types of open discussions and
educate ourselves others and society my
next question has to do with the history
of psychedelic research and
what is the the first account of people
using drugs and psychedelics to treat
these types of disorders well the very
first accounts were all the way back in
the 1950s
Humphry Osmond was one of the early
Western discoverers that is you know
people not in these indigenous contexts
and more colonial context to bring these
substances into sort of the western
context to introduce writers and artists
and then later a much wider public
including therapists to the use of
things like psilocybin and LSD so it was
all the way back in the 1950s and 1960s
through the 1970s one South American
psychiatrist claudio Naranjo was a
chilean psychiatrist he’s still around
and travels and gives lectures he wrote
a book called healing with intact adjust
recently republished in English by maps
that was about the healing use of
substances related to MDMA and also
ibogaine to treat psychiatric disorders
so including a lot of firsthand case
accounts from neuron hos patients in the
1970s about therapeutic uses those of
those substances
another one was stanislav grof who’s a
psychiatrist a one of the founders of
transpersonal psychology so this idea
that our consciousness is our our mental
illnesses and our awareness are shaped
not just by the events that happen to us
during our lifetime but also the events
that happen to us before birth and after
our death and that psychology and
psychiatry should consider these more
spiritual dimensions when they’re
treating mental illness stan grof back
in the 1970s was also treating thousands
of patients using LSD and doing it
legally
you know this was before LSD was was
criminalized so there are some
widespread first hand case accounts from
therapists and psychiatrists who used
these drugs and developed expertise in
them before they were criminalized since
then there’s been a a massive freeze on
the legal use of those substances when
they were made illegal a lot of people
went underground and continued
practicing at the risk of course of
their licenses and their legal freedom
and a lot of people just stopped so now
the research that we’re doing is hoping
to make it legal once again for
therapists to use those in their
practice yeah that’s pretty intriguing
that people would have to go underground
for various treatments and the research
that you guys are conducting so what is
the the current scope of the Maps
Institute PTSD is our lead indication
right now you know we can talk all day
in general terms about how psychedelics
can be generally helpful for people and
some people have had those experiences
and they’ve been helped by psychedelics
and they understand right off the bat
millions of people in fact but there’s a
lot of other people who haven’t
experienced that for whatever reason
because they’re illegal or because
they’re just not interested or because
they’ve heard exaggerated claims about
their wrists have not tried psychedelics
themselves so so for those people it’s
not the stories it’s not this general
talking about it that that really
matters what really matters is
scientific research and that’s what’s
going to matter and changing a lot of
minds and opening up people who could
possibly benefit from the use of these
substances and also for moving through
the FDA which is the only way that these
drugs are going to be approved for
illegal prescription use you know just
as a side note before I describe what
we’re doing with MDMA and PTSD is that
this this this clinical research this
prescription approval of MDMA and LSD
and marijuana that Maps is working
towards it’s not our final and goal our
end goal is to open up any number of
contexts where people can use
psychedelics in marijuana
beneficial purposes not just to heal
from mental illness but also for
spiritual uses and rend and recreational
uses and for enhancing creativity but
always in safe and legal contexts right
so with MDMA this is kind of a doorway
it’s a it’s a stepping stone to a much
wider acceptance of psychedelic research
and psychedelic therapy in this sense
PTSD of course is a well maybe not of
course I think people haven’t heard
about it enough but PTSD is a is an
epidemic right now not just the the many
thousands of veterans who are coming
back from abroad suffering from PTSD but
also the millions of people who have
experienced sexual assault or violent
crime or natural disasters or anything
that causes the these kinds of lasting
traumatic responses this has happened to
millions of people in the United States
alone many people are trying to find
better approaches to treating PTSD and
for a lot of people in fact for a
significant minority at least 1/3 of
patients with PTSD they don’t respond to
the existing therapies so over 1/3 of
people with PTSD just just don’t get
better despite medication despite
psychotherapy and PTSD is becoming more
and more widely recognized I think
because of the veterans issues because
of the response to the war in Iraq and
Afghanistan because of the incredibly
justjust just terrifying suicide rate
among veterans where we’ve had more
veterans commit suicide than have
actually died in combat in the Middle
East in the last 10 years and that’s
just and that’s just just just
horrifying yeah so where is the war
really happening it’s not abroad well
it’s right here because this is where
people are dying also so you know
PTSD is this major issue it’s a it’s a
it’s a you know really pressing cultural
problem and there’s a great deal of
reason to believe
previously anecdotally and now through
scientific clinical research that MDMA
combined with psychotherapy can be a
lasting lasting treatment for PTSD so
currently the approved treatments for
PTSD the approved drugs for PTSD are
SSRI as their strategic their selective
serotonin reuptake inhibitors Prozac and
paxil again for a third of people those
don’t work and the results even in the
fda-approved clinical trials for those
did show significant efficacy but the
margin was very small so people did get
better but only marginally barely enough
for prescription approvable in fact with
MDMA combined with psychotherapy the
treatment approach we’re looking at only
administers that to people a couple of
times so two or three times is the
course of treatment in our studies
whereas for Prozac and paxil obviously
people have to take those every day
often for the rest of their lives and
they still don’t get better is there a
more lasting effect of the use of MDMA
to treat PTSD versus a pharmaceutical
drug yeah yeah that’s exactly what we’re
finding and it’s it’s a totally
different approach from the conventional
pharmaceutical approach where people are
getting these drugs every day our first
completed pilot study that was in South
Carolina and 19 subjects found that 83%
of those in the study who received
mdma-assisted psychotherapy no longer
qualified for PTSD after just two
treatments now to sort of highlight what
that means is that that means that so
83% of those 19 subjects received two
sessions of mdma-assisted psychotherapy
after those two sessions they no longer
qualify for PTSD so they wouldn’t have
gotten into the study if they’d have had
that level of PTSD after the treatment
so that’s compared with 25% of those who
just received two
therapy sessions so exactly the same
therapy without the MDMA so we’ve got
25% vs. 83% the difference being made up
for presumably because of the
double-blind nature of the trial that
difference was because of the MDMA being
present
so these subjects also they’re not just
everyday PTSD subjects these are people
who had had PTSD for an average of 19
years so some much longer than that so
two decades three decades even worth of
PTSD and they tried other treatments and
they hadn’t worked for them so they
enrolled in the study and 83% of them
didn’t have PTSD after just two
treatments and that’s not exaggerating
that is what the study results show you
can check out the results in the Journal
of psychopharmacology that’s a man yeah
and then the following year we did a a
follow up of the subject so in most most
clinical studies including the ones for
Prozac and paxil they only evaluated
people after a few months following
treatment we followed people for an
average of three point eight years so
almost four years after their second
treatment and we found that over that
period of time those results that 83%
reduction or that 83% elimination of
PTSD had been sustained on average for
those people during that time two
subjects relapsed so they developed PTSD
symptoms again we got permission from
the FDA to give those subjects one
additional session at mdma-assisted
psychotherapy again and so we did that
and we found that their PTSD symptoms
had dropped down below the qualifying
level again so some people just might
take more or those symptoms might come
back but still we’re only talking two or
possibly three sessions of mdma-assisted
psychotherapy to eliminate work or
dramatically reduce PTSD symptoms in
people who’ve had PTSD for an average of
two decades yeah I was um I was speaking
to a friend of mine in preparation for
this interview he served in the military
and he tried came back was diagnosed
with PTSD
he tried pharmaceutical drugs they
didn’t work he resorted to using
psilocybin on his own and he noticed a
remarkable difference he actually
noticed an improvement and you know his
his ability to deal with with being back
in the world so how that leads me to the
next my next question I how do we remove
this this social stigma I mean the
research is there and and are you guys
moving towards doing more controlled
studies is MDMA
I mean MDMA is the main focus but I know
that there are other psychedelics like
LSD and ayahuasca and ibogaine and there
there are clinics that that you can go
to to treat addiction disorders so I
mean there’s it there’s a large kind of
you know scope of drugs here that you
can use to treat these these illnesses I
guess it’s really exciting yeah we’re
we’re trying to find out exactly what
those which drugs are best for which for
which conditions but you know again like
I said our broader mission is to open up
all sorts of uses for these compounds
you know MDMA might be good combined
with psychotherapy for one thing but not
for another LSD like why is it it’s a
different drug with different effects
and used in psychotherapy is probably
useful for different things so the
research that we’re doing is trying to
parse that out and also to establish a
really firm evidence base for what are
the real risks of these drugs so that we
can adequately inform people who might
choose to use them on their own like
your veteran friend so you know the the
vision the vision that was put forward
by maps founder Rick Doblin when he
started when he started Maps back in
1986 and I know you’ve spoken with Tom
Schroeder yeah yeah the author of acid
test and probably heard a little bit you
know about Rick and his
character and his vision and his drive
to bring these psychedelics back into
mainstream practice and in fact to
become a psychedelic therapist himself
which is his goal and so what we’re
focused on is is moving MDMA through
this clinical trial process and if we
continue to get these really astounding
results and we have four currently
ongoing phase two studies to build on
those results and we’re starting to get
some preliminary looks at the data and
it’s looking really exciting that the
end you know we’re on schedule to
deliver some really serious clinical
trial results to the FDA at the end of
2021 so in about seven years we’re gonna
have an evaluation from the FDA of the
clinical trials that have been completed
deciding whether to make MDMA a legal
prescription drug now what that means in
practice is not that people are going to
be able to get a prescription from their
doctor and take MDMA and go home and
call them in the morning kind of
situation really not not at all it’s
going to be administered much more like
you could look at the model of methadone
clinics which are not legal in a lot of
places still because of you know drug
fears and prohibitions in this education
but you can look at methadone clinics or
ibogaine clinics as you mentioned which
are available for drug addiction not in
the United States but in Mexico and
other countries is that there will be
clinics where people come in and they
meet the therapist and they receive the
therapy there so psychedelic therapy
clinics where therapists and
psychiatrists can administer legally
approved prescription psychedelics
combined with psychotherapy so people
will stay the night at these clinics and
they’ll go home the next day maybe
somebody will come and pick them up
there will be aftercare provided
you know massage meditation bodywork you
know walking additional psychotherapy
sessions all of the things that make
psychedelic therapy really stick all of
those services will be provided there at
the psychedelic therapy center
so once those are open we’ll be able to
use any sort of psychedelics that are
approved in those in those clinics and
that should you know proliferate across
the country and you know make it
available for the people who need it
you know Terence Mckenna
said something like that these these
other drugs are he termed quote
conspiracy drugs like TV tobacco
caffeine sugar alcohol and he said that
we need to go back to the drugs that
first made human beings like strong and
he was referring to food of the gods
where he talked about these sort of
proto humans with small brains that were
or kind of finding these mushrooms
growing out of the feces of the the
local cattle there and he claimed that
the by by eating these these little
fungus shrooms that it would have
enhanced their their eyesight their
sexual enjoyment and thereby would have
led to them sort of enhancing their
genetic evolution so he says that he
says that by you know it’s it’s an
urgent necessity for the legalization of
these drugs do you do you see you know
there’s Terence Mckenna is is a big name
and Timothy Leary there there doesn’t
seem to be anyone like that that is sort
of using philosophy and and kind of
talking to us
anymore I mean I know I know Rick Rick
Doblin just seems like more of an
activist then and then a philosopher so
I asked various to to know you know do
you see any is there a reason for that
separation I don’t see a reason for the
separation I think we definitely need
both in the sense that we need the
guiding metaphors that come from
philosophy and storytelling and we also
need the hard scientific evidence so
that we can implement it into concrete
policy so that we can actually make
these tools of a
you know I think there’s a tendency for
philosophy to go off on its own track
and you know those metaphors that it
provides for how to understand
psychedelic experiences or altered
states of consciousness is extremely
valuable and the stories that we get
from people like Terence Mckenna and the
people who report their experiences
they’re their own psychedelic
experiences are very valuable because
they help explore the outer dimensions
of of consciousness which is a
scientific investigation and is
something we have a right as humans to
explore but on the other side these
states of mind and these philosophies
and these stories have been relegated to
a counterculture unfortunately because
of both decades of disruption by forces
that don’t agree with the philosophy and
also by deliberate or not deliberate
that is by unintentional the
unintentional sidelining of the
counterculture itself so every time we
have a group that comes out and and
proclaims that it is a countercultural
group that it is fighting the status quo
you know it’s a it’s a different
approach to change than working within
the mainstream and using the tools of as
they say the system to to change the
system itself there’s there’s not a
profit there’s no profit and a cure
right so I can’t I can’t continue to
take PACs vilified if I’m no longer
depressed because I had a therapy
session on MDMA so I mean there’s
there’s nothing really it in it for
these large pharmaceutical companies if
if we’re actually being cured you know
of of our ailments I was reading about
this this ketamine infusion therapy have
you heard of this yeah yeah yeah
ketamine it’s a legal it’s illegal
dissociative anesthetic that has some
psychedelic effects yeah it was in
there’s actually a clinic in LA that
uses this therapy treatment to treat
problems such as complex regional pain
syndrome
and it even affects depression I mean
there’s there’s so many positive uses to
these these substances that we’ve we’ve
already written off and demonized and
with our draconian laws I mean and I
guess this is why maps is so important
to what we’re doing is you guys are
actually putting the research to get and
getting the information out there you
know as I mentioned we have these phase
two studies of mdma-assisted
psychotherapy also just just last week
or rather two weeks ago the publication
of some qualitative long-term results
from our LSD assisted psychotherapy
study in Switzerland which was completed
last year those results were published
in the Journal of psychopharmacology as
well so we have results from that
showing sustained reductions and anxiety
and better quality of life in subjects
with anxiety associated with advanced
stage illness that participated in that
study so we have the MDMA studies the
LSD results we’re also working on some
observational studies of ibogaine and
ayahuasca assisted therapy for addiction
and there’s there’s other organizations
the heffter Research Institute is
sponsoring really excellent psilocybin
research looking at psilocybin treatment
for nicotine addiction psilocybin
assisted psychotherapy for anxiety
associated with life threatening illness
so there’s a lot of great work going on
with psilocybin as well so the field is
I think just opening up in a really
really exciting way you know and even
you know most excitingly you know really
is watching this field you know for me
watching this field coming together
watching a new scientific legitimate
field coming together where people are
literally coming out of the shadows are
coming from their own professions
neuroscientists and hospice workers and
marriage counselors and artists and just
just psychiatrists pharmacologists
people are coming from all ends of the
spectrum saying hey you know I have an
interest in psychedelic therapy now that
this is a mainstream conversation
so watching all of these different
people come from these different fields
to build this you know new growing field
of psychedelic therapy and psychedelic
science is some is really cool there’s a
lot of neat opportunities for students
and other people with an interest in the
field to kind of find their niche what
are some of the dangers associated with
using this in a clinical setting versus
a recreational setting and how do you
treat or react or respond to someone
having an adverse reaction to what
they’re experiencing or feeling mmm yeah
seeing what is happening with
psychedelics and therapy in a clinical
setting kind of changes how you might
think about what it means to have a
difficult psychedelic experience often
in these recreational settings these
less controlled settings first of all
people don’t know what they’re getting
you never know what you’re putting into
your system unless you’ve done some sort
of a scientific test testing kits are
available but they’re not 100% reliable
and most people don’t use them so in
those settings you don’t know what
you’re using and then also in those
settings you lack support so a difficult
situation where you lose your
self-consciousness or you lose your
self-awareness you can get into a very
dangerous situation you can either
overdose because you don’t know the
dosage or what you’re taking or you can
lower your boundaries and people can get
into compromising dangerous situations
that’s the main danger in those in those
situations but you know if you get into
a stiff occult psychological state which
is to say a challenging one where fears
come up or difficult emotions come up
and you’re in a comfortable setting with
adequate water and snacks and and
comfort and very comforting
compassionate trained therapists around
you those difficult situations can
actually be transformed into very
therapeutic ones with psychedelics often
the reason for a difficult
Ariane’s is because unprocessed
emotional trauma or memories is coming
up and of course if you’re in an
uncontrolled setting that can be very
dangerous but if you’re in a therapists
office and you’re prepared for the
experience in fact you’re expecting it
and you know that you’re going to have
adequate support then that’s actually a
fantastic opportunity too to deal with
those those those those issues as they
come up what an interesting phenomenon
that you know we can we can kind of use
these substances to heal our psyche and
and and you know there’s this noticeable
change and no longer you’re dependent on
this this pharmaceutical drug and and
feeding that machine how close is your
relationship to mr. Devlin and how
closely do you guys work together I
talked with him most days unless he was
traveling he’s he’s off to the UK
actually he’s just on a flight to the UK
for this weekend maps is leading with
Rick’s assistants a therapist training
for clinicians who are going to be
working on our mdma-assisted
psychotherapy research so therapists
from all over the world about 30 of them
are coming to receive training not
actually using the MDMA but to go
through the therapeutic approach and to
learn about the pharmacology and the
risks so that’s happening this weekend
and as part of our growing clinical
trial program it’s pretty exciting have
you heard of Francis Crick he he came up
with the DNA helix um pretty sure he he
was he said that he was under the
influence of of LSD when he discovered
the double helix structure of DNA which
is pretty interesting yeah I’ve heard he
he attributes the discovery to an
experience that he had while under the
influence of LSD so at least my
understanding was there wasn’t it he
didn’t sort of like envision it right
there during the LSD experience but sort
of connections he had made
sort of led him down the line to to to
discover it but that admission was you
know really spectacular you know you
know we’ve also had Steve Jobs come out
and say that that LSD was quote you know
one of the most important unquote
experiences of his life you know I think
so it’s it’s really great when people
can come out publicly and talk about
their scientific discoveries and talk
about psychedelics role in their own
creative process it’s it’s it’s you know
something that you know the millions of
middle-aged people now who have tried
LSD in their lives
most of them already know but can’t talk
about because it’s illegal but it’s also
a story that many of us have to hear and
as far as a psychedelic sand creativity
you know maps right now and most of the
clinical research worldwide right now is
focused on clinical applications so
taking people with a diagnosed illness
and treating it because those people are
the most in need historically the drugs
and the treatments that have percieved
been perceived as most risky our society
has been most willing to give to the
people who are most at risk so people
who are dying people who have severe
PTSD these are very sympathetic groups
of people that we’ve therefore gotten
permission to administer these these
drugs too there seems to be an
interesting amount of religious
organizations that were able to
challenge their the respective
legislation on the legality of these
substances and are able to use
substances like ayahuasca to to perform
their their religious ceremonies how
what is your what is your opinion about
those groups yeah it’s not the first
time the US government has allowed the
religious use of a psychedelic the
Native American church also has legal
permission to use peyote
the active component of which is
mescaline in their own religious
ceremonies so religious use is another
area that’s expanding again not just
therapeutic use but but also creative
use and also this religious use all of
these are areas that we want to see
opening up and hopefully this clinical
research will shift the public
conversation enough
so that we can do research into those
areas as well have you I know that you
guys are focusing mainly on MDMA right
now so what what are some of the the
negative effects that you’ve seen in
your clinical trials so this would
basically be the list of potential
negative side effects that we’re going
to see on the prescription bottle when
it’s finally approved so there have been
over 800 people subjects already treated
in our clinical trials using MDMA and in
all of those all of those applications
all those administrations of MDMA we’ve
only had one serious adverse event a
serious adverse event is the sort of
clinical trial speak for the worst case
scenario the worst case thing that we
would expect to see happen given how
much MDMA people are receiving and the
fact that they’ve been pre-screened and
so forth in the worst case scenario the
single serious adverse event that we had
was a middle-aged man who had an
elevated heart rate during the session
so high that the medical monitor their
on staff was not sure that he was safe
and so he was taking to the emergency
room and evaluated and then released
later that same day so that’s the worst
we’ve had is a case of a dangerously
elevated heartbeat so in those trials
something that’s important to remember
is all of those subjects have been
pre-screened so anybody receiving MDMA
in those clinical trials has already
been evaluated for a family history of
serious heart problems are serious and
there a lot
chuckle problems and things like that so
for different people the risks vary but
for MDMA the most common side effects or
as I said an elevated heart rate
elevated blood pressure and possibly an
anxiety reaction people can feel very
anxious all of that is only during the
effects of MDMA there’s also some report
of a decrease in certain kinds of brain
activity serotonin in particular just a
few days after the use of MDMA but
that’s all restored to normal in two to
four weeks after treatment so that’s the
worst we tend to expect from MDMA the
risks change very much when it’s used in
large quantities or used in recreational
settings or when not enough water is
being consumed or went too much water is
being consumed or when people otherwise
just aren’t regulating their their
temperature and fluid intake so again
that difference between the controlled
setting with screen subjects and the
recreational setting is very great how
does a person become a licensed
therapist with with mob’s well in our
clinical trials we just find therapists
and we train them and we enroll them as
investigators in our studies we only
have a few studies going on right now
five or six total if you include our
therapists training study where we
administer MDMA to healthy volunteers as
part of their training but all of these
people are there they’re hand selected
to be therapists in our studies based on
their training and experience so
mdma-assisted psychotherapy isn’t just
just just any old psychotherapy and then
given them dma and we talked for a while
it’s a it’s a it’s what’s called a non
directive form of psychotherapy we’ve
developed a training manual an actual
manual for people to administer this
form of psychotherapy it’s available on
our website at maps org anybody can
download our treatment manual
and see how this therapy is being
administered and a non-directive therapy
is just this kind of therapy where it’s
it’s open-ended the therapist isn’t
telling the subject to go a certain way
psychotherapists isn’t isn’t
interpreting the patient’s experience in
any way they’re just being reflecting
boards for the subjects as they work
through their trauma yeah so all that’s
available online it’s um it’s you know a
different process now during the
clinical trials then it will be once
MDMA is approved once MDMA is approved
as a prescription drug then any
physician will be able to prescribe it
and then anybody with a therapeutic
license under the supervision of
somebody with a medical degree a
prescribing license will be able to
actually sit with the subject or in that
case the patient and administer the
therapy yeah that sounds like it would
be a really positive thing for humanity
as a whole
I hope so there is a lot of people not
just in this country but but you know in
other countries where PTSD is also an
epidemic where where it could be really
or it could be really valuable yeah
that’s a really good point man we’re
approaching the end here
what do you have anything else that you
want to want to add I know this is is
more of an awareness kind of thing where
we’re we’re discussing what Maps is
doing and putting it on the map yeah
yeah just that you know I’m you know a
lot of people ask you know how they can
help and how they can get involved and
you know what they can do at this stage
you know one is definitely you know like
Francis Crick did like Steve Jobs did
you know like a lot of people are doing
is it’s important to talk about your
experience openly you know and not then
really not be afraid you know if you if
you have the privilege to live in a
culture to live in a place where you can
talk openly about your experience than
do of course a lot of people don’t and a
lot of people are still under
of long they can’t talk about their
beneficial experiences because of their
ethnicity or because of their economic
location or because of where they live
in the world so so for them then talking
openly about it isn’t quite an option
yet but what they can do is educate
themselves
check out maps org we’ve got a
newsletter that I send out every month
with all the latest research multimedia
news articles so the email newsletter
definitely has a great way to you know
stay up to date we have a lot of stuff
we have LSD studies and MDMA studies
ayahuasca studies ibogaine studies we
have a marijuana study we’re right now
waiting right now for a final decision
from the state of Colorado and whether
maps is going to get our first ever
government grant for two million dollars
for our medical marijuana research for
PTSD that’s something we haven’t really
discussed much because MDMA is so
exciting but you know marijuana as a
treatment for PTSD is very much not like
MDMA psychotherapy for PTSD in the sense
that we’re not trying to you know
completely eliminate PTSD symptoms
rather just help people deal with the
symptoms to cope with the symptoms you
know on an everyday basis so we’re
waiting on that grant decision if we get
that funding we’ll have all the funding
we need for that study although we’ll
still need to find a way to actually get
the marijuana from the federal
government so that’s a really
fascinating story and people should
check out the email newsletter and
follow along as we try to start the very
first clinical research to make
marijuana prescription drug yeah I mean
it’s it’s really exciting I know there’s
there’s a very broad scope of things
here and and there are a lot of just a
lot of drugs that I guess that can be
classified as helpful to to repairing
and treating PTSD I know you guys are
working with MDMA I find ayahuasca is
really interesting do you think there’s
yeah is there a large difference in your
mind between synthetic synthetic drugs
that treat PTSD and the not the natural
drugs that treat PTSD
I think the distinction isn’t between
synthetic and natural I think that’s a
too easy distinction because synthetic
drugs can be beneficial or some things
and other natural substances can be
useful for other things the difference
really is that with synthetic drugs
you’re just getting single isolated
chemicals which can themselves have
beneficial effects as we’re seeing with
the MDMA research and as we see with LSD
research LSD is also a synthetic
chemical although it’s derived from a
natural compound just like MDMA so first
of all there’s the synthesis process
that makes it hard to distinguish
natural from synthetic you can get
synthetic molecules derived from organic
sources for example the other thing is
that with natural compounds you tend to
have much more than a single molecule
involved with ayahuasca it’s a complex
mixture of different chemicals largely
DMT but which can be synthesized but
ultra but also occurs endogenously in
mammals including humans so that’s a
complex mixture of things ibogaine some
treatments use the isolated or synthetic
ibogaine hydrochloride others use the
more complex plant mixture so you get
different effects in different
combinations depending on natural and
setec natural and synthetic but I think
there’s no way to just say natural is
good and synthetic is bad I think that’s
really just as harmful and just as
misinformed as saying psychedelics are
good and opiates or bad or vice versa
right you know it’s just what are we
using it for how carefully are we using
it and what are we intending thanks Brad
I do appreciate your time and sometimes
these conversations can be a little bit
difficult to have because of the legal
gray area that they exist in where can
people find out more about what you guys
are doing well we’ve got brand new
website actually cleaner look if you
find any bugs let us know we’re still
working on it
mass org and ApS o RG
email newsletter there we’re also on
Facebook at facebook.com slash maps and
DMA were also on