Rachel McNulty (Letters, 19 April) is right to emphasise the need for proper funding of integrated mental health care and social support, but wrong to dismiss MDMA based on a single anecdotal case. I can provide a number of counter-anecdotes showing the value of MDMA to mental health, including a friend of mine who has said that it saved him from taking his life in his youth.
However, science-based healthcare is not about anecdotes, but systematically gathered evidence and controlled trials. Such trials are already under way and are showing strong promise for both MDMA and psychedelics as effective psychiatric medicines when used appropriately. They are absolutely necessary to provide a clear evidence base that cuts through both “war on drugs” scare stories and psychedelic hype.
This work is made slower and more expensive because MDMA is classified as a class A drug. A cost-free measure that a new Labour government can take is to move MDMA and psychedelics to be class B, making research cheaper, faster and easier to conduct. In future, this would allow MDMA and psychedelics to be incorporated into NHS integrated care in an evidence-based way, and is likely to improve quality of life for many while reducing health and social care costs. Until this happens, it is not surprising that people like Rose Cartwright (I was the poster girl for OCD. Then I began to question everything I’d been told about mental illness, 13 April) find support in self-medication and underground therapists in the UK and abroad.
Chris Preist
Bristol
• Dr Rachel McNulty ignores numerous studies and trials on MDMA that have gone on around the world in recent years. These have shown encouraging results, especially for the treatment of PTSD and alcoholism.
While it is unlikely that MDMA will replace other forms of treatment, its potential benefit when used in conjunction with other treatments for mental health should not be overlooked.
David Jones
Hurstpierpoint, West Sussex
• There is substantial evidence suggesting that certain drugs including MDMA, psilocybin and ketamine have enormous therapeutic potential for patients with certain conditions when administered clinically. Making blanket statements on such drugs devoid of medical context is like insisting that morphine has no viable medical use because individuals in the past abused or overdosed when self-administering the drug.
Jeff Goodrich
Edmond, Oklahoma, US
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