Under U.S. law, a substance classified under the Controlled Substances Act Schedule I must meet the following criteria: “(A) The drug or substance has a high potential for abuse. (B) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States. (C) There is a lack of accepted safety for the use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.” While these criteria are designed to reduce the use of harmful drugs among Americans, strong evidence for safe, accepted medical use and low addiction potential of a number of Schedule I drugs should invalidate any improper classification. Citizens should make decriminalization and re-scheduling of drugs with promising healthcare potential a voting priority.

One of the strongest candidates for legal reexamination is the non-canonical psychedelic chemical 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine, known as MDMA. The drug has recently shown promise in effectively treating Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, a condition experienced by seven to eight percent of the general American public, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The substance was discovered to be psychoactive and popularized among the psychotherapy community in the 1970s by the recently deceased chemist Alexander Shulgin. The drug jumped from the psychotherapy community to electronic dance music circles, where it gained recreational popularity in the early 1980s and became colloquially known and distributed in dilute form as “Ecstasy.” The drug was classified as a Schedule I substance by the Drug Enforcement Administration in 1985, prior to being evaluated for its psychotherapeutic qualities in double-blind scientific trials.

Recent evidence suggests that the drug was improperly scheduled. An ongoing Phase II pilot study evaluating the effectiveness of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for United States servicemen with PTSD has produced promising results. The clinical development prospectus from the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies makes a strong case for development of clinical use of the drug by comparing its effectiveness and harm potential against that of existing psychotherapeutic SSRI treatments, noting that “Once approved, MDMA will be the first medication that works by enhancing the psychotherapeutic process, unlike other pharmacotherapy treatments that are administered on a daily basis primarily to reduce symptoms.” A 2013 study from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology concluded that using canonical psychedelics “does not increase a person’s risk of developing mental health problems.” The findings from a 2012 clinical MRI study of MDMA, performed at Imperial College London (the results of which were published in Biological Psychiatry), suggest possible clinical application of the drug for PTSD and anxiety treatment.

All of this flies in the face of the anti-drugs rhetoric initially used by the Reagan and Thatcher administrations to criminalize the drug in the West. “In Pursuit of Oblivion,” the pre-eminent historian Richard Davenport-Hines’ treatise on the global history of narcotics, the author discusses the Reagan administration’s morally and scientifically bankrupt attitude in drug policy creation at length, concluding that “Ronald Reagan … surpassed Nixon as a wrong-headed drugs warrior.” The administration’s duplicity in ramping up DEA enforcement in the U.S. while funding Contra drug trafficking that affected the supply of illegal narcotics in the U.S. should be enough to raise eyebrows when discussing the motives behind the administration’s scheduling policies.

Substances like MDMA with promising healthcare potential should be rescheduled to match appropriate federal scheduling criteria. This column does not advocate uncontrolled substance use but rather suggests that promising scientific evidence for accepted medical use of banned substances be taken into account by voters when evaluating the drugs policy of candidates for political office. With the professional healthcare community’s growing understanding of PTSD as an epidemic condition, it is imperative that psychotherapeutic drug treatments known to be effective be made legally available. Scientific evaluation, and not cultural tradition, should govern thought behind technical medical innovation.

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