El Mundo [Ibiza]
March 19, 2005
An association which supports drug research auctions off a week “of dancing” in Eivissa on the Internet
View an image of the original article in Spanish
Elena Sánchez
Translated from Spanish
[Notes by Ilsa Jerome PhD]
EIVISSA — Since last Monday, March 14th, one of the most important virtual companies on the Internet that specializes in on-line auctions, eBay, offered new and alternative products. All of them are being put in the employ of a U.S. non-profit organization studying the benefits and risks of substances like “MDMA, psychedelic drugs and marijuana”.
Among them, “some series of drawings that appear on the LSD acid blotters”, considered a sort of interactive art that somehow serves as a guide through the lysergic experience, among other products, most of them related to these illegal substances being studied by this association, whose name is The Multidiscplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies.
However, it is surprising that among the sort of [item] being offered is “a week of tanning, dancing and trance parties in Eivissa”, as reported by Kristen Philipkoski, a journalist for the on-line edition of the most influential U.S. technology magazine, Wired, in her article last Thursday, March 17th.
Defraying expenses
The auction closes next Monday, March 21st, and the funds collected will go towards paying personnel, thanks to the “group’s recent success”, as the founder and president of MAPS, Rick Doblin, explained to the specialty magazine.
In fact, the association has received the Food and Drug Administration’s approval [for conducting research], this being the organization that is responsible for safeguarding Americans citizens’ health and that depends on the federal government’s Health Department. It has also received the approval of the Drug Enforcement Administration, DEA, in charge of supervising and controlling laws concerning illegal substances, in order to carry out a trial to attempt to show that drugs such as MDMA or ecstasy are beneficial in therapy for people who suffer from post-traumatic stress.
On the other hand, the association that “supports research on psychedelic drugs”, as descrubed by Wired, is waiting for the DEA to offer its go-ahead to study the functioning of drugs “as a psychological aid for all terminal cancer patients”.
[MAPS Note: Specifically, these studies include one of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in people with PTSD and another study of MDMA in people with anxiety relating to advanced stage cancer. In addition, MAPS is supporting the development of a study of psilocybin and LSD as potential treatments for people with cluster headaches.]
The association, in the news section of its web site, also foresees starting medical research on marijuana. As part of its strategy to get this substance legalized, as the [illegible] say and [illegible] evidently, said studies are halted by the [illegible, perhaps DEA?] which they find themselves immersed in against the DEA with [illegible] respect to delays in [illegible] the relevant licenses so that MAPS may grow or import marijuana.
Two articles in a newspaper in Ibiza (El Mundo), “An association which supports drug research auctions off a week “of dancing” in Eivissa on the Internet”, and “Eivissa’s ‘raves’ have made this tourist destination mythic” discuss MAPS’ ebay auction of, among other things, a week at a “villa in Ibiza” and report on MAPS’ agenda.
