MAPS has several clinical trials around the world at this time that require human subjects. Our studies have strict enrollment criteria based on the goal of the study and the condition the study is investigating. These studies are designed to study how psychedelics can help people with serious illnesses, which means that the study is limited to people diagnosed with a serious illness.  The two primary conditions that we are studying are Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and anxiety associated with life-threatening illness. If you are dealing with one of these conditions please visit our Participate in Research page.

There are many studies that do not actually involve administering psychedelics, such as online surveys, that are open to more people. To find out about current research projects and their criteria for volunteers, go to: www.maps.org/volunteer.html

Occasionally there are non-MAPS sponsored studies in which psychedelics are administered to healthy subjects in order to learn more about the effects of psychedelics. Many of these studies require that participants have some previous experience with the drug under study (marijuana, MDMA or psychedelics). Finding out about whether any local universities or institutes are doing these studies may require visiting a university or medical school website, researching PubMed for recent publications, and checking: http://clinicaltrials.gov

 

We wish we could! Unfortunately, outside the context of a very few government-licensed studies, psychedelic therapy is illegal. Hopefully, with the work of MAPS and other organizations and individuals, someday we will operate a psychedelic therapy referral service! We recommend several other options for people seeking personal growth through altered states. Many people have found practices like meditation and yoga to be extremely beneficial. Hypnosis is one method by which some therapists help their clients access deeper states.

Another method is Holotropic Breathwork, created by pioneering psychedelic therapist Stan Grof. This is a breathing technique that induces an altered state of consciousness without drugs, usually in the context of a structured experience with evocative music. It offers a gentle introduction to these states, as the intensity of the experience can be somewhat controlled by the breather. To learn more or find Holotropic Breathwork practitioners in your area, go to www.breathwork.com or www.holotropicbreathwork.ning.com. You can also visit the Grof Transpersonal Training site, www.holotropic.com, for more information, including workshop schedules.

For those who can afford it, ayahuasca retreats in Brazil offer a supportive context to use psychedelics for personal and spiritual growth. Go to Wasiwaska.org and Ayahuasca-Healing.net to learn more about two groups that offer retreats.

If you are suffering from addiction, an ibogaine clinic may be able to help. Some of these clinics also treat people without addictions who are interested in personal or spiritual growth. See our ibogaine page for links to ibogaine treatment providers. We forewarn you that numerous deaths are associated with ibogaine use and we encourage you to make an informed decision before using ibogaine.

People addicted to alcohol and drugs can also try contacting Eleusis, a ketamine psychedelic psychotherapy clinic in Florida.

 

MAPS Colleague R. Andrew Sewell M.D. wrote an excellent article for a 2006 MAPS Bulletin about the path to become a psychedelic researcher.

 

While the most important item that MAPS needs to accomplish our goals is financial resources, we also need volunteers and community members to spread the word about our work. The more people are aware of us, the more likely we are to gain more dues-paying members.  Please sign-up for our email update and share it with your friends.

Even modest donations are beneficial to support the ongoing operations of our organization. We have membership options for every income level.

MAPS uses USPS to ship items. If you have not received an item in a reasonable timeframe, please call our office and our sales coordinator will be happy to assist you.

In order to turn psychedelics into prescription medicines there must be a condition that the medicine is treating. We know from before psychedelics were banned that the pioneers of psychedelic research found efficacy in treating PTSD and anxiety associated with terminal illnesses with various psychedelics. 

We estimate that it will take ten years and $10 million to turn one substance into a prescription medicine. We have chosen to narrow our focus to these two conditions in order to efficiently meet our goals.

While we would like to sponsor studies into a variety of psychedelics, financial and human resources limit us.  We have chosen to focus primarily on MDMA as a treatment for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder because it is realistic that we will be able to raise the necessary funds to conduct the needed studies to turn MDMA into a prescription medicine. If we were to acquire limitless resources we would fund a wider variety of research studies.

There are a number of online resources for students and others looking for information on psychedelics. On the MAPS site, check out the Psychedelic Bibliography, at www.maps.org/wwwpb/. This is a database which contains several different bibliographies that can be searched together or separately. The Albert Hofmann Collection in the psychedelic bibliography includes PDFs of nearly every published paper on LSD or psilocybin from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s. The bibliography lists nearly every research report published up until early 2001 (and includes PDF copies of most of these). MAPS also has annual reviews since 2003 of MDMA-related literature on the MAPS website.

You can also find these resources with a different search format, at www.erowid.org/references.

Another online resource is Medline, the database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine, with over 12 million references to scientific journal articles from 1966 to the present. You can access it through PubMed at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed. Most references, however, will include only the abstract (or summary) of an article, not the full text.

 

It is quite difficult to get permission to do legal research with illegal substances.  Through perseverance and patience MAPS has obtained approval from regulatory bodies, such as the Drug Enforcement Agency, to conduct research with schedule 1 substances. 

MAPS President Rick Doblin, PhD has been steadfast in his determination to conduct psychedelic research. Rick’ s PhD dissertation from Harvard’s Kennedy School outlines our method for making psychedelics into prescription medicines.

Rick Strassman’s book DMT the Spirit Molecule outlines the process that he went through to do DMT research in the 1990s. This is a good read to get a grasp on the arduous process of gaining government approval to conduct such research.

While ibogaine therapy has shown promise for addiction treatment, it is not yet legal in the U.S. However, there are ibogaine clinics in various locations around the world. MAPS is conducting an ibogaine outcome study at a clinic in Mexico. We forewarn you that numerous deaths are associated with ibogaine use and we encourage you to make an informed decision before using ibogaine.

MAPS is very interested in the potential of LSD to treat cluster headaches. However at this time we are unable to fund research in this area.  We recommend visiting our friends at: www.clusterbusters.com

Difficult psychedelic experiences can be confusing at the least, and occasionally can be very traumatic. If the issues that arose during the experience remain unresolved, then they may have long-lasting effects. This is made more difficult because many people don’t feel they can discuss their experiences with their families, doctors, friends, or therapists. Finding a therapist who is knowledgeable about psychedelics, if possible, will be very helpful.

MAPS encourages people to be knowledgeable about how to handle difficult psychedelic experiences. We have created a video and webpage specifically to educate the public about this subject.

MAPS previously referred people to the Center for Psychological and Spiritual Health, formerly the Spiritual Emergence Network. Unfortunately, this organization has lost funding for its clinic and hotline. However, they still maintain a website with good links, at www.cpsh.org. They also link to transpersonal sites and organizations in the U.S. and abroad.

Another site linked to is Dr. David Lukoff’s Spiritual Emergence Resource Center. Stating that spiritual emergence often resembles mental health emergency, this site notes the differences and how to seek help.

While many psychedelic experiences are difficult because of issues which the person is facing internally, external factors are often the catalyst for "bad trips." These can be minimized by choosing to enter psychedelic states only in safe, supportive settings. Check out these resources on creating better contexts for psychedelic use.

Basically, no. Imaging studies of ecstasy users have failed to find reductions in dopamine transporter binding (Reneman et al. 2002; Semple et al. 1999) and a post-mortem investigation also failed to find any evidence of reduced dopamine in a heavy ecstasy user (Kish et al. 2000). In September 2002, George Ricaurte and Una McCann published an article in Science magazine claiming that MDMA not only reduces dopamine output, but also causes Parkinson’s disease. This article was retracted a year later once it was discovered that the monkeys and baboons used in the study had been "accidentally" administered methamphetamine, instead of MDMA. Further investigation failed to find any dopamine toxicity in monkeys given genuine MDMA (Mechan et al. 2005). To read Rick Doblin’s article discussing the implications of the Ricaurte retraction, click here.

To review a timeline chronicling the Ricaurte MDMA controversy, and to find many useful links to research reports and press items related to MDMA research, click here.

On the other hand, there have been several recent studies (Sotnikova et al. 2005, Irvani et al. 2003, Banjaw et al. 2003, Schmidt et al. 2002) that reported a reversal of symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (PD) in lab animals after being administered MDMA, MDMA-like compounds, such as MDE and MDA, as well as other "non-empathogenic" amphetamines. Much of this research was instigated by the account of a British man with PD who appeared in the media claiming that he gained symptomatic relief after ecstasy use. However, none of the findings suggest that MDMA itself is going to be a suitable PD medication. Even if the lower doses of MDMA or related compounds do treat PD, they are not likely to be a viable, practical solution, since daily dosing with MDMA greatly increases risks of potential neurotoxicity. Moreover, the people most likely to have PD are also likely to have other conditions that make taking MDMA or other amphetamines a bad idea ("contraindications," like high blood pressure, heart problems, or problems with blood vessels in the brain that might pose stroke risk). One study (Sotnikova et al. 2005) administered doses of MDMA that were up to sixty times higher than what could be safely administered to a human subject, meaning that it would be neurotoxic and probably lethal.

A number of concerned women have written MAPS because they took one or two doses of MDMA (ecstasy) before they realized they were pregnant. While the research is limited, it is unlikely that a baby will suffer harmful effects in this situation. We know of quite a few healthy children -including one girl who is now 16- who were conceived on MDMA.

We recommend avoiding taking MDMA if you know you are pregnant! One study has reported that infants born to mothers who have taken MDMA during pregnancy are at increased risk of birth defects, and another study found no abnormalities among babies born to mothers who have used MDMA. While we believe the risk of one or two doses early in pregnancy is probably low, we cannot know for sure until more research is done.

It’s also important to note that unless you’ve sent your pill to a lab for testing, even the usual MDMA testing kits are not going to tell you everything that is in a street Ecstasy pill. This means that you might be exposing yourself and your fetus to unknown drugs, or to compounds like DXM or methamphetamine.

Also see the MAPS MDMA and Pregnancy page at www.maps.org/mdma/pregnancy.html

We’re very interested in collecting more information on this subject. Please write us and let us know how you and your baby are doing!