\n<\/p>\n
A former head of the British military is calling for the government to ease restrictions on the party drug MDMA so that it can be tested more cheaply as a treatment for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).<\/p>\n
Sir Nick Carter, who was chief of the defence staff until 2021, said existing regulations meant a single gram of \u201cmedical grade\u201d MDMA cost about \u00a310,000 compared with a street price of about \u00a340, inflating the cost of trials.<\/p>\n
The Sandhurst-trained former general wants Britain to press ahead with further trials after a study in Nature Medicine showed that PTSD symptoms were eliminated in 71% of the 52 cases where MDMA-assisted therapy was tested.<\/p>\n
Carter said the initial results showed that MDMA therapy had the potential to be more effective than existing treatments for PTSD, which affects about 9% of military veterans who served at the time of deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we want is for the government to make the cost of trials much cheaper. We\u2019re not asking for MDMA to be declassified, but there should be some sort of reduction in its classification when it comes to medical treatment,\u201d Carter said.<\/p>\n
Potential benefits could reach beyond the military, Carter added. \u201cThis could help not just veterans, but others such as police and workers in other emergency services and the NHS as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
MDMA, or ecstasy, is a class A drug in the UK, and its sale or possession is illegal, though it can still be bought from black market dealers. But to be used in a clinical environment, it has to be bought in from abroad and expensively transported in a special convoy to researchers.<\/p>\n
A group at the University of Cambridge is seeking to raise \u00a32m to fund a further trial of MDMA-assisted therapy for about 40 people, in a partnership with the charity Supporting Wounded Veterans, of which Carter is the patron.<\/p>\n
So far, \u00a3700,000 has been raised, according to Gilly Norton, the chief executive of the charity, for tests that aim to cover a group of veterans, first responders and war correspondents all suffering from PTSD in the UK.<\/p>\n
When used recreationally, in small doses, MDMA produces feelings of euphoria and acts as an empathogen, increasing feelings of wellbeing, empathy and compassion. It is these qualities mental health researchers want to take advantage of.<\/p>\n
A course of MDMA-assisted therapy consists of two or three eight-hour sessions with a therapist to explore underlying problems a PTSD sufferer would ordinarily be resistant to exploring.<\/p>\n
\u201cEssentially it affects the plasticity of the brain,\u201d Carter said. \u201cSo when the psychiatrist asks questions, the patient is much more responsive. The process needs to be closely supervised; it\u2019s not about creating a trip, but having the right effect.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of those hoping to benefit is Martin Wade, 53, a former lawyer with the British army, who developed complex PTSD several years after being deployed in Helmand province, Afghanistan with the Royal Marines in 2006-07.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Martin Wade, a former lawyer with the British army.<\/span> Photograph: David Levene\/The Guardian<\/p>\n One of Wade\u2019s responsibilities included deciding whether a proposed operation was in line with UK and international law, as the only lawyer on the deployment.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I found particularly difficult was that as time went on, I felt more and more responsible for what was happening on the ground,\u201d Wade said.<\/p>\n Wade also conducted initial inquiries into incidents in which civilians were killed, to determine if a murder investigation by military police was required.<\/p>\n In one case he had to decide if a war crime had been committed after a soldier fired a warning shot into the ground in front of a car that had been driving towards a military convoy. The bullet ricocheted up, went through the engine bay, killing the driver, a woman and her three-year-old child that she was holding, Wade said.<\/p>\n \u201cOne round, three dead civilians, no bombs onboard, and you\u2019ve got this young 18- or 19-year-old and the rest of the convoy really quite traumatised by it. I\u2019m flying out to deal with this, and all of a sudden \u2026 I can feel my body now. Where do you start?\u201d He concluded it was \u201ca terrible, terrible mistake\u201d.<\/p>\n In the years that followed Wade struggled with drink and his mental health, before being diagnosed with PTSD and ultimately being abruptly discharged from the military. Further psychiatric treatment in hospitals followed and gradually Wade\u2019s condition has improved, helped partly by him becoming an artist.<\/p>\n Wade said he wanted to be able to try MDMA assisted therapy, because he believed that the trials \u201creally offer some hope to veterans\u201d.<\/p>\n He said it was his understanding that \u201cit gives you a sense of self-love when you\u2019re talking about difficult and ingrained experiences that have become part of a chronic condition\u201d.<\/p>\n Despite many years of conventional therapies \u201cand all my ardent and best efforts to sort of melt the symptoms away\u201d, Wade said he had never been able to successfully eliminate \u201chyper-vigilance, hyper-arousal and flashbacks and nightmares.\u201d<\/p>\n Wade called for more help for those struggling with PTSD. \u201cWhat really irritates me is that when you are in somewhere like Afghanistan, you realise how far missiles are being used at \u00a380,000 per warhead.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd you think, just if the government would give each veteran that\u2019s really struggling \u00a380,000 worth of therapy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A former head of the British military is calling for the government to ease restrictions on the party drug MDMA so that it can be tested more cheaply as a treatment for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Sir Nick Carter, who was chief of the defence staff until 2021, said existing regulations meant a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[1641,680,689,22697,22698,744,321,628,7709],"class_list":{"0":"post-43385","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-army","9":"tag-calls","10":"tag-chief","11":"tag-exbritish","12":"tag-mdmaassisted","13":"tag-military","14":"tag-ministers","15":"tag-therapy","16":"tag-veterans"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}