MDMA MAY NOT CAUSE COMEDOWNS, ACCORDING TO NEW STUDY

words by: Aneesa Ahmed 

MDMA may not be the cause of your "Blue Mondays" after all, according to a new clinical trial. The study, titled Debunking the myth of 'Blue Mondays': No evidence of affect drop after taking clinical MDMA, tracks the moods and reactions of 14 people who were enlisted into an MDMA-assisted psychotherapy course to treat an alcohol disorder.

Researchers found no drop-off following clinical MDMA use in the 14 participants. It instead claims that several of those who took part claimed that their mood went up and reported that they felt no inclination to use recreational MDMA. 

As written in their abstract, the researchers:

"aimed to evaluate the evidence basis for the negative side effects associated with MDMA as well as inform our understanding of the drug's post-acute effects in a clinical context with an open-label study."

They found that comedowns that are associated with recreational MDMA were not seen in their patients. They argue that the illicit sourcing of the drug and the environment in which it is taken can be a reason why it creates a comedown while used recreationally.

"The differences between clinical MDMA and recreational ecstasy are massive. An ecstasy tablet or a bag of crystal MDMA may contain anywhere between 0mg and 350mg of MDMA, plus any number of adulterants. In contrast, when we give MDMA clinically we use clinical-grade MDMA, which is 99.98% pure." - Dr Ben Sessa, the co-author of the study and a research fellow at Imperial College. 

Full article HERE