Ecstasy's good side

People dying of incurable diseases are often crippled by depression, fear and anxiety. But the drugs that offer relief for those problems can be overly sedating, making patients mentally foggy.

A long-outlawed treatment may be the answer.

Within the next few months, a group of late-stage cancer patients will be given an illicit party drug to see if it can help them come to terms with their situation. That chemical is MDMA, better known as Ecstasy. "There are so few palliative care options for the terminally ill," says Dr. John H. Halpern, a psychiatrist who will be conducting this research at Harvard University's McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass. "And there is anecdotal evidence that MDMA can help them resolve the anxieties they experience without doping them up on tranquilizers."

The study is part of a resurgence in research into the therapeutic uses of psychedelics for severe psychiatric ills that don't respond to traditional treatment. Because of the chemicals' profound ability to alter perception and mood, scientists hope they will melt the psychological barriers that prevent patients from getting better.

"We stand to learn a lot from these drugs, and I hope that the judicious application of this new knowledge would decrease suffering in people who have mental illnesses," says Dr. Francisco A. Moreno, a psychiatrist at the University of Arizona in Tucson who has done psychedelic research.

The study of Ecstasy for the terminally ill will involve 12 cancer patients who have less than a year to live. They'll receive varying doses during two strictly supervised therapeutic sessions. The drug, once hailed as "penicillin for the soul," is a chemical cousin to amphetamines that reportedly induces feelings of profound empathy. It will be combined with traditional psychotherapy, and, Halpern hopes, "enable them to open up in therapy so they can talk about challenging issues and resolve their grief."

Halpern's work was inspired by studies in the 1960s and early '70s that revealed that the use of psychedelics in the terminally ill reduced anxiety, improved rapport with close friends and family, and diminished the need for narcotics.

"It was one of the most promising areas of psychedelic research," says Dr. Charles Grob, a psychiatrist at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, "and one of the most unfortunate casualties of the hippie revolution because mainstream psychiatry still does not have good treatments for people with end-stage illness who have tremendous anxiety."