GLP - Green Leaf Party of Israel

Dr. Ecstasy

Dr. Rick Doblin is working hard to free L.S.D. -
and he’s having some success, Adi Oz, Ha’eer Newspaper, 31.08.2007 / Translation by Eilon Gilad

download the originanl article (compressed ZIP file of the scanned pages)

The National Hallucinator

In a few days, for the first time, in the history of the Zionist
Nation, the trial stage of an Israeli experiment with MDMA, better
known as Ecstasy. In honor of the event we delved the subject with Dr. Rick Doblin, who is responsible for developing the connection between
psychedelic drugs and psych therapy, around the World.
Instructions are also included.

By Adi Oz
Photographs Image Bank, Shay Ben Efraim
continuation
Dr. Rick Doblin’s journey into the wonderful world of L.S.D. started
in Auschwitz, of all places. “As a young Jewish youth I had many
thoughts about the Holocaust,” He said. “It made me want to learn
about the subconscious, madness in culture and religion,” he paused.
As if, the continuation were commonplace, as if, the connection
between genocide and Dr. Hoffman’s invention was completely natural.
Sorry, doctor, but holocaust and psychedelics? What, exactly, is the connection?
“The Holocaust is an expression of a human mechanism causing people to
believe they are superior ? my country is better, men are superior to
woman, whites are better that blacks ? there are many examples of how
people interpret different as inferior. But, there is a deeper, even
mystical, way, which causes people to feel we are all connected, an d
when we share something communal and deep, it is more deficit to look
out for scapegoats. I felt that L.S.D. and MDMA bring us to a point of
equilibrium both emotionally and intellectually. That they allow us a
way to share something deeper than our own separate identities. The
World faces catastrophe, the time has come to change our mode of
thinking. Maybe through MDMA therapy we will be able to cure theses
self - perpetuating blocked patterns.” At first, it seems as if this
person is hallucinating,. He similes like a hippie, His English is
slow and despite the joints smoked, the palms of his hands constantly
fidgeted like tiny dancers. The ginger cat rubbing up against his leg,
also, fit the first impression that this is, in-fact, another American
dreamer stuck on a trip, not knowing the Sixties are over. On the
other hand, dreamers have always been a driving force in the history
of humanity. For nearly twenty-five years, Doblin (53) has been living
the fantasy, proving that with some ambition and a lot of creativity,
even psychedelic drugs ? the sworn enemy of governments everywhere ?
can slowly find their way into the warm bosom of the consensus.

This legal path came through the psychiatrist couch. Doblin arrived at
Israel, this month, on official business for the organization he
founded and heads MAPS: An international multidisciplinary non-profit
organization that studies Psychedelics. In precisely ten days, for the
first time in the history of the Zionist nation, the trial part of a
study with MDMA, more commonly known to the Public as Excites. The
study is aimed at checking what effect MDMA will have on percents
suffering of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) brought on by acts
of terror or military combat (More on this study ahead). Meanwhile we
settle in to conversation with Doblin about the days when Ecstasy will
bring us peace and security.

Yes, they are scaring you
“The first time a took LSD, I was seventeen and something. It was
during the Vietnam War, and I have decided not to enlist. I preferred
protesting and going to jail. In the end, they didn’t put me in
prison, I was just ignored. Until I tried LSD, I thought it made you
crazy and irreversibly damaged your brain. I went to study at an
experimental collage in Philadelphia, a place with a very open
atmosphere and no grades. One of the tracks they had there was
Psychedelic Therapy, which I chose. I learnt that LSD didn’t, in fact,
make you crazy, but rather, puts you in a dream-like state: things
between the sub-unconscience and unconscience rise. Dreaming is a way
to reach the deeper realms of conciseness. Many usurers of psychedelic
drugs have reported having religious and mystical experiences, and I
felt that if many people around the world felt that way, it could have
very positive impact on politics.”

There is only that small problem with the law.
“The way to legalize drugs is through science and medication, and that
is what we are doing. We hold therapeutic studies with psychedelic
drugs and marijuana, in order to reach a point where people can accept
drugs and the experiences they entail, so that riots, like the ones
that happen in Israel, will cease to be a part of reality.”

Here, in Israel quite a bit of people use drugs after they are
discharged from their military service, they do it far away and
sometimes at alarming rate.
“When someone is discharged from the army, he wants to let go and one
can not find much encouragement nor support. I think that if there was
more support for that kind of letting go in this country, people would
stay in Israel more. If there where more places that allowed a trip of
this kind and therapy, it be a healthier situation. When I thought of
what would help Israel, a place saturated with pressure and trauma, I
thought MDMA therapy for those who have suffer trauma in combat or
acts of terror, was it.”
MDMA was criminalized in the States, only twenty-one years ago. It was
invented in 1912, in Germany, by the pharmaceutical company Merck,
that hadn’t utilized it. In 1970 LSD was criminalized. The Beat
Generation was looking for alternatives and discovered MDMA. In the
beginning the drug was kept secret and was only used by underground
therapists that used it for “human growth,” according to Doblin. This
intermediate stage lasted up to the yearly 80s, “when someone who
tried it thought: ‘Here is something I can make money from,’” Doblin
says. “That’s how MDMA became ‘Ecstasy’, and a transition from
relatively safe supervised private use of the drug to public use of
the drug in bars. The United States was in the midst of a war on
drugs, so naturally the government criminalized it, and used cheep
propaganda turning users into scapegoats, criminals and terrorists.”

not exactly convenient for someone who is just studying psychedelic
psychotherapy.
“When I was studying MDMA it was till legal, but I anticipated there
would inevitably be a cultural clash and the study of MDMA would be
stopped.

You keep saying that it doesn’t mess with your mind, and I can’t help
recalling stories of people believing they are dolphins, entering
panic attacks or in-short have become mentally ill as a result of drug
use. Is this only due to bad drugs?
“If you take a powerful drug and strong emotions arise in you, you may
become extremely vulnerable. If you are in a place in-which you do not
feel secure, it could become problematic. That is why it is important
to have someone who hasn’t taken the drug with you. Even if you are
not in the company of a professional therapist, it is very important
to have someone who hasn’t used in the group.”

Like with Alcohol.
“Exactly, like a designated driver. Because under the use of the drug
it becomes very difficult to distinguish between what is real and what
mere figment of your imagination. I have to be able to borrow yourself
into your own private hole without anyone from the outside thinking
your strange. Damage is created when people feel they have to hide
what is arising within themselves from their surroundings. A lot of my
first LSD rips where like this, and it was very distractive, like
loosing a part of your soul.”

I have a friend who lives in Berkley and hasn’t suffered any special
trauma, just ’scratched’ like everyone else. He old me that his
therapist treats him with LSD, and that there are therapist in Israel
who do the same.
“That’s true.”

If one of ‘HaIr’’s readers would be interested in forgoing psychedelic
psychotherapy, what could he or she do?
“No much. That is why it is so important that we approve it as legal
medication, because, now, most of the drugs users aren’t aware of the
drugs therapeutic value and use it merely as a party drug. Even the
fact that MDMA was used as a therapeutic drug foe nine years before it
became criminalized, is not known to most of the public.”

What do we do in the meanwhile?
“On our website (www.maps.org) there is a video that teaches you how
to help people who are going through a bad trip and some therapeutic
principles. Therapist can help a lot, but even just friends can tell
each-other: ‘You just think about you emotions, and I’ll protect you
from the outside environment and will be here if you want to talk.’
One of the principles on our website is that you must have a safe
have, and when your therapist is guiding you ? what is guiding you is
your sub-conscience. When you take LSD your ego brakes up and a a lot
of things rise, and you guide yourself.”

What else can we do?
“Don’t try to suppress things that are coming up. For example, if you
accidently throw a comment about a friend who had passed away, last
week, the therapist is supposed to talk to you about it and not
suppress it, by saying something like ‘forget about it, think about
happy things,’ rather talk about what is coming up. Even if the things
that surface are difficult, it doesn’t mean that it is bad, but that
you’ve entered a difficult area. Feel comfortable with the
discomfort.”

And there is no chance that we will become so comfortable and feel so
good that we may become addicted?
“The drugs that people tend to get addicted to are escapist drugs,
that assist in escaping the strife of reality. When you take LSD,
eventually you will experience difficult experiences, it isn’t just
fun. Because of that, Psychedelic drugs aren’t addictive, they are
scary ? a challenge. Except for Ketamine ? the most addictive of
psychedelic drugs, because it is more escapist.”

And MDMA?
“It is true that when you take MDMA you feel more self excepting and
you can make mistakes and feel that the experience was more important
than the original goal, which is learning from it. We treat MDMA as a
two day experience. The first day you take the drug and on the second
you reflect on the things that sufficed during the experience. That
way you get more out of the experience. But it is true that one of the
main problems with MDMA is that people enjoy it so much that they may
forget the work that needs to be done, and just do it again and again.
Still, there is a difference between MDMA and Cocaine: With Cocaine
people feel so good that they want to repeat the experience again and
again. When you use Cocaine it feels good and you want to do it again
an again. When you use Cocaine it feels good but then goes away. You
don’t feel changed by the experience. With MDMA something more
enriching and deep happens, something stays, that is why most people
don’t want to use it repetitively. They are more satisfied. It’s like
going out to a really good dinner ? You don’t want to have another
after five minutes.”

Have you yourself taken a lot of psychedelic drugs throughout the years?
“I treat it as therapy, that is why I don’t use the term ‘psychedelic
drugs,’ but rather ‘psychedelics.’ The word ‘hallucination’ leaves the
experience in the state of illusion depriving it its deeper meaning.
Today, I hardly ever use, but there are some monumental moments,
in-which I made use of this kind of therapy, always with the company
of a trained therapist, and overtime it had been an important
experience that proved to be exctreamly important to the construction
of my personality.”

For Example?
“I undertook psychedelic therapy after my fiftieth birthday, it helped
me a lot with taking getting older more easily, with less fear of
death and more focusing on getting the most out of life. It also
helped me to see the need in devoting time to train a new generation
of psychedelic therapists and political activists, and to revive my
loving relations with my wife and three children. And I also saw a
star.”

A star?
“It remained visible even after sunrise, and accompanied me throughout
the day. Later on, I found out it way Venus, which at that day way
abnormally close to Earth, and for that reason was visible also during
the day. It wasn’t an Hallucination.”

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