Ecstasy Therapy: Penicillin for the soul

Today, Explained

Vox

Daily News, Politics, News

4.4 • 9.5K Ratings

🗓️ 1 August 2024

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1980s Berkeley, an eccentric chemist and his wife, a self-taught therapist, experimented with MDMA. Their work would kickstart a decades-long campaign to mainstream psychedelics as a therapeutic tool — one that’s coming to a head this month, with a decision due from the FDA. This episode was reported and produced by Haleema Shah, edited by Lissa Soep and Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Andrea Kristinsdottir and Rob Byers, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. It’s the second in a series supported with a grant from the Ferriss–UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellowship. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast Support Today, Explained by becoming a Vox Member today: http://www.vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today explains Sean Ramosferm here with Helima Shaw one of our reporters and producers here on the show.
0:05.0	Helima, the country is thinking about who the next president will be, what the next government
0:10.0	will look like, but you're here to tell us about something that our current government might do this month in August.
0:14.6	Yeah, I'm here thinking about what the next big drug might be.
0:18.7	MDMA, the drug that most people might know as ecstasy or Molly is actually under consideration
0:24.7	by the FDA as a potential therapeutic drug. And this drug, unbeknownst to most
0:30.4	probably, has been on quite a journey to get here.
0:33.2	It has and today we're going to take a journey from the 1970s all the way to today where this drug goes
0:39.3	from this kind of reflective, reflective drug to this demon drug of the dance floor,
0:47.0	all the way to something that could potentially
0:49.0	treat some of the toughest cases of PTSD.
0:52.0	FDA, MDMA, some of the toughest cases of PTSD.
0:56.7	FDA, MDMA, maybe a little DEA, PTSD coming up on today explained.
1:01.4	Support for the show comes from into the mix, a Ben and Jerry's podcast about joy and justice, produced with Fox Creative.
1:09.0	Ainez Bordeaux is a self-described Hellraiser, and she became an activist after being caught up in the criminal legal
1:15.7	system, when she couldn't afford her bond, and without a trial, Einez was sent to a St. Louis detention
1:22.4	facility known as the workhouse, notorious for its poor living conditions.
1:27.6	Here how she and other advocates fought to shut it down and won.
1:32.1	On the first episode of this special three-part
1:34.4	series out now.
1:35.8	Subscribe to Into the Mix, a Ben and Jerry's podcast.
1:41.9	How do custom orders work on Cracken? Imagine I'm a music producer, dialing in my newest track.
	...

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