Multidisciplinary Association For Psychedelic Studies - Projects

Projects

Since 1986, MAPS has distributed over 12 million dollars to fund research and education. These include:

• Sponsored a Swiss study that sought to examine the effectiveness of LSD-assisted psychotherapy in the treatment of patients who suffer from anxiety associated with terminal illness.
• Obtained FDA and IRB approval to study MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in Charleston, SC with similar research projects now underway in Switzerland and Israel.
• Sponsored the first U.S. based study evaluating the therapeutic application of MDMA with treatment resistant PTSD. Results from this study have been published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. Also being prepared or conducted are MDMA/PTSD pilot studies in Canada, Israel, Jordan, and Switzerland.
• Sponsored a Phase 2 pilot study of the effectiveness of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy to treat PTSD in veterans of war.
• Designed a study to examine vaporized or smoked marijuana in the treatment of war related PTSD in veterans, which will evaluate efficacy and safety of multiple strains of herbal marijuana. The study has received FDA approval. MAPS is pursuing the purchase of appropriate strains from the US federal government.
• Sponsored efforts by Prof. Lyle Craker, Medicinal Plant Program, UMass Amherst Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, to obtain a license from the Drug Enforcement Administration for a marijuana production facility.
• Sponsored pioneering analytical research into the effects of the marijuana vaporizer, leading to the first human study of marijuana vaporizers conducted by Dr. Donald Abrams of the University of California, San Francisco.
• Opened an FDA Drug Master File for MDMA. This is required before any drug can be researched in FDA-approved human studies.
• Assisted Dr. Charles Grob to design, obtain approval for and fund the first FDA-approved study in the U.S. to administer MDMA to humans.
• Assisted in the design and is funding the world's first government-approved scientific study of the therapeutic use of MDMA (Spain).
• Sponsored studies to analyze the purity and potency of street samples of "Ecstasy" and medical marijuana.
• Funded the successful efforts of Dr. Donald Abrams to obtain approval for the first human study in 15 years into the therapeutic use of marijuana, along with a $1 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
• Obtained Orphan Drug designation from the FDA for smoked marijuana in the treatment of AIDS Wasting Syndrome.
• Funded the synthesis of psilocybin for the first FDA-approved study in twenty-five years to evaluate psilocybin in a patient population.
• Supported long-term follow-up studies of pioneering research with LSD and psilocybin originally conducted in the 1950s and 1960s.
• Sponsoring research by Dr. Evgeny Krupitsky into ketamine-assisted psychotherapy as a treatment for heroin addiction and alcoholism.
• Hosted the conference “Psychedelic Science in the 21st Century,” in April 2010. This was the largest conference on the topic of psychedelic science to have occurred in nearly 40 years.
• Sponsoring programs and services at festivals, community events, churches, and schools that provide psychedelic harm reduction and education.

Currently, MAPS has been given a Schedule I license to conduct research with MDMA on veterans and survivors of physical or sexual assault who are suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, as well as with advanced-stage cancer patients who are experiencing anxiety associated with this diagnosis, the first licenses the DEA has granted for MDMA psychotherapy research.

On the 19th of July 2010, the peer-reviewed Journal of Psychopharmacology published the results of the MDMA studies pursued by Dr. Mithoefer and concludes that this work is very promising. It also states that "this pilot study demonstrates that MDMA-assisted psychotherapy with close follow-up monitoring and support can be used with acceptable and short-lived side effects in a carefully screened group of subjects with chronic, treatment-resistant PTSD".

A clinical study for treating cluster headaches using low doses of the tryptamine psilocybin (found in psilocybe mushrooms) is being developed by researchers at Harvard Medical School, McLean Hospital in conjunction with MAPS.