Yeah, I wrote those ridiculous letters for this post, knowing full well what they mean. And yes, I also know that knee-jerk reaction I had when I first read those letters in conjunction to anything having to do with medicine.
For those that don’t know, MDMA is more commonly known as Ecstasy.
I personally know of it’s short, sordid history as a party drug because my sister and a couple of my friends. I especially remember a party out in the desert of my junior year where I babysat a boy not much older than me while he was rolling. It was funny at the time, but terrifying when I was older and learned what the dangers of Ecstasy were.
Of course, no one tells of the time before MDMA became a party drug. It’s used as an effective treatment for ADHD in the form of Adderall. And now, it has shown potential for a lot more.
PTSD is a scourge for an alarming number of people. Trauma enough to completely damage a mind, let alone a body. But scientists have taken this drug and traditional therapy and turned it into an effective PTSD treatment, in much the same fashion as Native Americans used peyote for guided meditation and spiritual enlightenment. It’s damned impressive.
What other “illegal” substances will medicine find a much higher purpose for, given time? What possible therapies could we come across in our exploration of the Universe? What stories could we tell with these possibilities with new worlds and cultures?
-T.A. Creech
Author of LGBT romance and speculative fiction.
Amazing, thanks for this!
Remember, heroin was thought to be a miracle drug, and cocaine believed to be harmless over a century ago!