After decades of criminalization, Australia’s government said Friday that it will legalize the prescription of MDMA and psilocybin for the treatment of two medical conditions, a historic move hailed by researchers who have studied the therapeutic possibilities of the drugs.
Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) said in a statement that starting July 1, psychiatrists may prescribe MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine), commonly called “Molly” or “ecstasy” by recreational users, to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and psilocybin—the psychedelic prodrug compound in “magic” mushrooms—for treatment-resistant depression.
“These are the only conditions where there is currently sufficient evidence for potential benefits in certain patients,” TGA said, adding that the drugs must be taken “in a controlled medical setting.”
Advocates of MDMA and psilocybin are hopeful that one day doctors could prescribe them to treat a range of conditions, from alcoholism and eating disorders to obsessive-compulsive disorder.
David Caldicott, a clinical senior lecturer in emergency medicine at Australian National University, toldThe Guardian that Friday’s surprise announcement is a “very welcome step away from what has been decades of demonization.”
Caldicott said it is now “abundantly clear” that both MDMA and psilocybin “can have dramatic effects” on hard-to-treat mental health problems, and that “in addition to a clear and evolving therapeutic benefit, [legalization] also offers the chance to catch up on the decades of lost opportunity [of] delving into the inner workings of the human mind, abandoned for so long as part of an ill-conceived, ideological ‘war on drugs.'”
MDMA—which has been criminalized in Australia since 1987—was first patented by German drugmaker Merck in the early 1910s. After World War II the United States military explored possibilities for weaponizing MDMA as a truth serum as part of the MK-ULTRA mind control experiments aimed at creating real-life Manchurian candidates. A crossover from clinical usage in marriage and other therapies in the 1970s and ’80s to recreational consumption—especially in the disco and burgeoning rave scenes—in the latter decade sparked a conservative backlash in the form of emergency bans in countries including Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration classifies MDMA and psilocybin as Schedule I substances, meaning they have “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”
From 1 July this year, medicines containing the psychedelic substances psilocybin and MDMA can be prescribed by specifically authorised psychiatrists for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder and treatment-resistant depression.
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— TGA Australia (@TGAgovau) February 3, 2023
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By: Miss Cherry May Timbol – Independent Reporter
