
Mercer Family Grants $1M to MAPS for PTSD Research with MDMA - anythingnonidin
http://www.maps.org/news/media/7054-press-release-mercer-family-foundation-grants-$1-million-to-maps-for-ptsd-research-in-veterans
======
hesdeadjim
Love all the support this kind of research is getting. Crossing my fingers it
reaches approved treatment status within the next decade.

~~~
Glench
With FDA-approved "breakthrough" status, the treatment could be approved as
early as 2021.

Also, for the more business-oriented crowd here, the business model for MAPS
is really interesting. There's a MAPS benefit corporation that plans to
manufacture and sell regulated MDMA when MDMA-assisted therapy becomes legal.
Their plan is to use all the profits from that b-corp to fund more research
done by the main MAPS non-profit.

I saw a talk by the director, Rick Doblin, where he said that fundraising was
taking most of their time which made doing the actual research difficult.
Their plan to make a sustainable benefit that directly funds the research is a
super interesting idea and I hope it works out. The world needs more examples
of sustainable organizations doing work that really benefits human happiness.

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malchow
Good for them. A bold move. (And yet another scientific cause, I might add,
victim to a stultifying and hidebound FDA.)

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dwaltrip
It seems we are getting into a second, more mature wave of investigation into
psychedelics. There is a lot of potential here. It's not the cure-all that
many thought in the 60s, but these substances are very powerful and can
facilitate meaningful change in people's lives, when used properly.

My intuition is that they work best when they are of a larger, more holistic
effort to improve oneself and get a better perspective on life. I think this
is why the studies that used guided sessions with preparation in the weeks
before are so effective. As we study and understand this more, we can really
start to realize the potential.

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wavefunction
Congrats to MAPS.

And congrats to all the other folks who believed in MAPS and the therapeutic
use of MDMA long before this point to get through the arduous Stage 1 and
Stage 2 trials.

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StriverGuy
Interesting donation considering the families die hard allegiance to the Alt-
Right/Trump. Seems to conflict with the current WH's stance on drugs.

~~~
hendler
Speculating, but the motives are likely profit.

Sessions is anti drugs because there is money to be made in private prisons,
where as other parts of the administration is friendly with pharmaceutical
industries in order make profit.
[https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/13/alex-azar-hhs-
secr...](https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/13/alex-azar-hhs-secretary-
trump-244837)

I'm not judging correctness of this as policy, but rather the motivation.

~~~
adventured
There's roughly 6x to 10x more money to be made in government prisons than in
private prisons. Sessions is a big government fan, as are most politicians in
DC. That government prison complex money goes into the pockets of lobbyists,
millions of voters and contributors (including powerful unions), that are
employed in/by the government system.

Currently ~85%-90% of all prisoners are held in government prisons and jails.

There are at least a million people employed in government law enforcement,
whose jobs are solely supported by the government's drug war and the
government prison complex. Sessions, like Trump, is a very big supporter of
law enforcement employees.

Sessions is doing it to support those million plus government employees who
have been overwhelmingly supportive of the Trump Administration and the pro
drug war side. Those million unnecessary government employees represent a
hundred billion dollars per year in pockets getting lined between pay and
benefits over time. The scale of that puts the private prison complex to
shame.

~~~
wjn0
Agree completely. People are very quick to ascribe the problems associated
with the prison industrial complex to the privatization of prisons, but that's
only a part of it.

Sessions has an ideology (digression: based on his history, I wouldn't be
surprised if it was rooted in racism [1]). But politicians, even the most
ideological, have been shown to be very easy to sway: be it for money, or
power, or something else. In his case, there is absolutely no incentive
(financial, political support, or otherwise) to change: his party's base
either partially agrees with him, or benefits from the policy stance, exactly
like you said. And that is why we get borderline absurd quotes like "good
people don't smoke marijuana" (2016) [2].

[1] [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-
trum...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-
attorney-general-pick-jeff-sessions-nominee-senate-confirmation-hearing-too-
racist-a7518726.html)

[2]
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/18/trump...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/18/trumps-
pick-for-attorney-general-good-people-dont-smoke-marijuana)

------
bhouston
I think I got PTSD from reading Mercer Family's sponsored Breitbart news and
Milo Yiannopoulos.

~~~
stevenspasbo
I've recently been reading Dark Money by Jane Mayer and the family is
discussed quite a bit. I'm surprised they're supporters of MAPS.

