MDMA ‘As Safe As Soccer and Cycling’
Top Norwegian scientists Pål-Ørjan Johansen and Teri Krebs have launched a crowd-funding campaign seeking to raise money to produce 100% pure MDMA and psilocybin for medicine, therapy and research and help ‘legalize recreational use’.
Chatting to Newsweek, the Harvard Medical School fellows (whose initial research was funded by a grant from the Norwegian government) pointed out that MDMA’s dangers come ‘because it is illegal’ and highlighted recent research in the American Journal of Psychiatry which said that psychedelics can cure other addictions such as alcohol.
“The commonality is that addiction and drug abuse have a function which is to escape from stress and difficult emotions like shame, loneliness, fear, guilt or shyness,” he said. (Newsweek: http://bit.ly/1yDN41Y _
Writing on their Indiegogo page, the duo explained their rationale further.
“Psychedelics have long been recognized as an ancient spiritual practice, protected under freedom of religion and belief. In surveys, most people who use psychedelics say that they do so to induce deeply personally meaningful mystical experiences,” they noted.
“In clinical studies, most participants say that the psychedelic experience was among the most significant and transformative events of their lives, comparable to the birth of their first child.”
“The world might become a healthier and happier place if MDMA (‘ecstasy’) and psychedelics (such as psilocybin, found in ‘magic mushrooms’) were made more available.
“These substances often induce profound experiences while at the same time having a safety profile comparable to many commonly accepted activities.” (Indiegogo: http://bit.ly/19JkfL7 )
In an open letter to medical journal the Lancet, they repeated their message.
“Psychedelics often induce profound experiences while at the same time having a safety profile comparable to many activities of daily life, such as riding a bicycle or playing soccer.”
“It is important to take a statistical perspective on risk, rather than focusing on anecdotes,” they urged.
Jonty Skrufff
