After a government representative was sent to learn about the substance from the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), Israel has approved the use of MDMA to treat PTSD on 50 patients.
“The ministry is taking this seriously and with appropriate caution, an in-depth investigation has been carried out,” Ministry of Health official Bella Ben-Gershon told Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “There is a considerable population in Israel of people suffering from PTSD that is resistant to other treatment.” Treatment will take place in Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center and psychiatric hospitals in Be’er Yaakov, Lev Hasharon, and Be’er Sheva.
MDMA’s effects on PTSD are considered by many to be a crucial point of research. It is estimated that 8 percent of US residents have PTSD at any one time, for a total of 24.4 million people. That rate rises considerably when one looks at the country’s population of veterans, for whom the rate varies between 11 and 20 percent.
States-side, there has also been key movement on the issue. MAPS has announced a $26.9 million strategy to convince the FDA to make MDMA an approved medication by 2021. The organization’s representatives met with the FDA to answer the government entity’s questions regarding a protocol that MAPS submitted for similar tests to take place in the United States. In 2017, the FDA approved two Phase 3 clinical trials of MDMA’s effects on the symptoms of PTSD, dubbing it a “breakthrough therapy.”
In some states, politicians are taking matters into their own hands when it comes to the drug’s availability for therapeutic purposes. Earlier this month, an Iowa state representative spoke out against the prohibition of MDMA and other hallucinogenic drugs. “A significant body of research