Ecstasy will be tested as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder after the U.S. Food and Drug administration approved the use of the drug, also known as MDMA, in large-scale clinical trials.
The FDA gave the go-ahead for Phase 3 clinical trials of the drug on Tuesday, a final step toward approval of the controversial street drug as a prescription drug.
"I’m cautious but hopeful," Dr. Charles R. Marmar, the head of psychiatry at New York University’s Langone School of Medicine, told The New York Times, noting that Ecstasy is prone to abuse and prolonged use can cause brain damage. "If they can keep getting good results, it will be of great use. PTSD can be very hard to treat. Our best therapies right now don’t help 30 to 40 percent of people. So we need more options."
The study will include 230 patients, an increase from the 130 patients treated with the drug during six Phase 2 studies sponsored by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies.
Those earlier studies showed promise, with two-thirds of participants on one study no longer meeting the criteria for having PTSD by the study's end, the Times noted.
"It changed my life," combat veteran C. J. Hardin told the Times of his participation in an Ecstasy trial. "It allowed me to see my trauma without fear or hesitation and finally process things and move forward."
In 2012, Rachel Hope told CNN about her experience in a trial using Ecstasy to treat PTSD from sexual abuse as a child and a life-threatening car accident.
"Somehow, I became aware of the hardwiring decisions that my brain had made to explain why all these traumatic things happened to me, and what they meant to me about being a woman, a child living in the world, about sex, about violence," she said. "What the medicine did, it brought everything up for question."
Ecstasy also could have applications in the treatment of autism, the Daily Mail reported, noting that earlier this year researchers at Stanford University published a paper stating the drug can "inspire empathy" and help patients with autism form better connections with their therapists.
If approved, the drug could be available by 2021 for use in the presence of trained psychotherapists as part of a broader course of therapy, the Times reported.
Twitter users shared mixed reactions.