https://maps.org/about-maps/

Here's what Rick Doblin, the founder of MAPS had to say about this:

"MAPS has started the MAPS Public Benefit Corporation, which is for-profit corporation. It's 100% owned by the non-profit, but still we have a for-profit arm, and the goal of that is to sell MDMA at a profit and then whatever the profits are to fuel more research and more public education."[1]

[1] - From about 54 minutes in to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZxRxJrSSPg

I feel this way because of how the presenters initially introduced themselves as very pro-psychedelic, then over the course of the series made what seemed to be increasingly negative and misleading statements to lead listeners to the conclusion that all psychedelics research is garbage (because everyone involved is either an abuser or motivated by greed) and that these drugs are just too dangerous to be legalised or used in therapy (because they are too disinhibiting or because they break people). They started with ‘psychedelics are great and I love them and they really helped me in my life’ and ended with almost an entire episode of ‘I tell anyone who is interested not to do it’.

The serious and legitimate problems that they detailed are very worthy of investigation and remediation, but they also all seemed, to me, to be failures of: (1) individual practitioners who engaged in unethical/illegal behaviour; (2) study runners who didn’t know, or didn’t care, or even believed that these unethical behaviours were actually fine; (3) the drug war, which stopped reputable groups with stronger ethical standards from performing studies and created space for an underground movement led by sociopaths; and (4) the medical research apparatus itself which is too uncritical and accepting of garbage study designs and data.

Some other “problems” they raised just struck me as odd, like the claim that results couldn’t be legitimate because they were combined from multiple trial sites, or that MDMA-assisted therapy is uniquely bad because it is ‘like doing open heart surgery and then walking away’.

Regarding multiple trial sites: I’m not a medical researcher, but I’ve seen this many times when looking up trials on clinicaltrials.gov. So, either (1) it’s not actually a problem, or (2) they didn’t clearly explain why this study’s multi-site design was uniquely bad, or (3) it’s a problem not unique to the MDMA-assisted therapy trial and should’ve been framed as an industry-wide problem instead but wasn’t.

Regarding the ‘open heart surgery’ analogy: Limiting the number of follow-up sessions was clearly a terrible study design and never should have been allowed, and the practitioners who refused to help should almost certainly be—at a minimum—barred from practice, but basically all forms of therapy have similar risks[0], so it seemed misleading at best for them to frame it as some consequence unique to MDMA-assisted therapy. There was even an article here on HN in 2020 about risks associated with meditation and mindfulness[1].

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4219072/

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24185710

Everyone in the field knows that there'll inevitably be some adverse effects among some (as far as we know, small minority) of participants in these studies and users of psychedelics as a whole. We also know that both the media and many media consumers love sensationalism and mud-throwing, whatever the facts may be.

So far the overwhelming majority of psychedelic studies have been enormously positive, but we also know that can't last forever and realistically speaking there are bound to be some negative effects. This was crystal clear long before the Psychedelic Renaissance even started.

We've been lucky that since the beginning of the Psychedelic Renaissance the media attention has been almost completely positive and curious. But that too will likely change. These Cover Story podcasts are a recent example of the start of this change.

The question is whether such negative media attention will derail the Psychelic Renaissance and whether we'll go back to the dark ages of complete prohibition and mainstream terror at the prospect of using psychedelics.

At this point that doesn't seem likely, and stories like this will probably just cause the scientists and organizations involved to get more serious about safety and the general public to stop (erroneously) regarding psychedelics and the people involved in the scene as panaceas that can do no wrong.

At the same time, I don't think we're at the peak of the hype curve, and as more people try psychedelics there'll be a lot more influencers and true believers who'll hype them to the sky. We might even get another Timothy Leary or Ken Kesey.

But the effect is the same, more neurotransmitters in the synaptic cleft.

People abuse Prozac as well if that given you a clue on their similarities.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8093133/

https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/ajp.150.12....

It's like saying that a helicopter and a blender are the same device because they both have spinning blades. These two substances are completely different in just about every way that they affect people, aside from producing a mood boost (which is an effect also caused by things like morphine, cocaine, a few different psychedelics, alcohol, caffeine, nitrous oxide, and many many more substances which don't act via serotonin).

One of the main theories on the action of MDMA involves the sudden serotonin release inhibiting the amygdala and thus reducing fear response. Prozac certainly does not do this. MDMA's effects are not even all shared with other serotonin releasers such as fenfluoramine or MDAI. And Prozac's effects differ somewhat from other SSRIs too.

The neurotransmitters and receptors in the brain are not a set of dials where you can ratchet one and always expect a given psychological effect independent of the other receptors, or even independent of the way it's ratcheted, or even the timing of it. Also the effect of these drugs is highly dependent on context too. Believe it or not, MDMA can sometimes produce dysphoria and or unpleasant/unhappy mental state. It is uncommon, but I have seen it happen.

Sorry for the rant, it's just this type of oversimplification really strikes a nerve with me.

> One of the main theories on the action of MDMA involves the sudden serotonin release inhibiting the amygdala and thus reducing fear response. Prozac certainly does not do this.

{cough}

Fluoxetine Facilitates Fear Extinction Through Amygdala Endocannabinoids

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4832021/

Chronic fluoxetine prevents fear memory generalization and enhances subsequent extinction by remodeling hippocampal dendritic spines and slowing down systems consolidation

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-019-0371-3

Serotonin-2C receptors in the basolateral nucleus of the amygdala mediate the anxiogenic effect of acute imipramine and fluoxetine administration

https://academic.oup.com/ijnp/article/15/3/389/720875?login=...

You read some articles. That is not enough. You are being duped by more pharmaceutical company propaganda.

Have you ever ask yourself why they don’t investigate the reason people are not producing enough serotonin? Or white people lack serotonin?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5337390/

Also, from your first link: "In contrast to fluoxetine, citalopram treatment did not increase BLA eCBs or facilitate extinction." And your second link: "Importantly, other SSRIs such as citalopram have shown the opposite effect, disrupting acquisition and retention of fear extinction"

Yeah...

Plus "fear extinction" is not the same as immediate fear reduction/inhibition as seen with MDMA.

I think that we as humans like to believe that we know more than what we do about these sorts of things.

Edit: Your third link talks about anxiogenic effects of fluoxetine, i.e. increases anxiety; literally the opposite of what you are arguing.

I'd like to see a paper from a reputable journal saying that MDMA is just a quicker working version of Prozac.

The fact that people are even slightly amazed at an amphetamine will make people happier is amazing to me. Don’t you’ll realize you’re substituting Street dealers for dealers in suits?

It doesn't merely "make people happier", but seems to actually help people face and let go of their trauma, forgive themselves and others, feel love and trust where they couldn't before, communicate with their loved ones more effectively, and has stopped some from killing themselves.

There is a lot of evidence that it effectively treats severe, treatment-resistant PTSD -- something no other type of treatment does even remotely as well, which is why it's likely to be fully approved by the FDA soon.

To compare its effects to other amphetamines, except at the most superficial level is ridiculous, as none of them have these effects.

As for dealers, I'd be happy if dealers (the street or suit kind) sold effective medication that improves people's lives. Of course the legal providers are better because then we can be assured of their medicines' safety and purity, and we won't have people thrown in jail and being killed in turf wars over something that helps people.