A former head of the British military has urged ministers to ease rules so MDMA therapy can be tested for veterans with PTSD.
Sir Nick Carter, chief of the defence staff until 2021, said existing regulations mean a single gram of medical-grade MDMA costs about £10,000 compared with a street price of about £40, inflating trial costs.
Post-traumatic stress disorder is a mental health condition triggered by experiencing or witnessing traumatic events.
The Sandhurst-trained former general wants Britain to press ahead with further trials after a study showed PTSD symptoms were eliminated in 71 per cent of the 52 cases where MDMA-assisted therapy was tested.
Carter said the initial results suggest MDMA-assisted therapy could be more effective than existing treatments for PTSD, which affects about 9 per cent of military veterans who served at the time of deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Carter said: “What we want is for the government to make the cost of trials much cheaper.
“We’re not asking for MDMA to be declassified, but there should be some sort of reduction in its classification when it comes to medical treatment.
“This could help not just veterans, but others such as police and workers in other emergency services and the NHS as well.”
MDMA, or ecstasy, is a class A drug in the UK and its sale or possession is illegal.
For clinical use it must be imported from abroad and transported in a special convoy to researchers, adding cost.
A charity, Supporting Wounded Veterans, of which Carter is patron, is seeking to raise £2m to fund a further trial of MDMA-assisted therapy conducted by a group at the University of Cambridge.
So far, £700,000 has been raised, according to Gilly Norton, the charity’s chief executive, for tests aiming to include veterans, first responders and war correspondents with PTSD in the UK.
When used recreationally in small doses, MDMA produces feelings of euphoria and acts as an empathogen, increasing wellbeing, empathy and compassion.
These qualities are what mental health researchers hope to harness.
A course of MDMA-assisted therapy typically involves two or three eight-hour sessions with a therapist to explore issues a PTSD sufferer might normally resist.
“Essentially it affects the plasticity of the brain,” Carter said.
“So when the psychiatrist asks questions, the patient is much more responsive. The process needs to be closely supervised; it’s not about creating a trip, but having the right effect.”
One of those hoping to benefit is Martin Wade, 53, a former lawyer with the British army, who developed complex PTSD several years after deployment in Helmand province, Afghanistan with the Royal Marines in 2006–07.
One of Wade’s responsibilities included deciding whether a proposed operation was in line with UK and international law, as the only lawyer on the deployment.
Wade also conducted initial inquiries into incidents in which civilians were killed, to determine if a murder investigation by military police was required.
In one case he had to decide if a war crime had been committed after a soldier fired a warning shot into the ground in front of a car driving towards a military convoy.
The bullet ricocheted up, went through the engine bay and killed the driver, a woman holding her three-year-old child, Wade said.
“One round, three dead civilians, no bombs onboard, and you’ve got this young 18- or 19-year-old and the rest of the convoy really quite traumatised by it.
“I’m flying out to deal with this, and all of a sudden … I can feel my body now. Where do you start?”
He concluded it was “a terrible, terrible mistake.”
In the years that followed Wade struggled with drink and his mental health, before being diagnosed with PTSD and being abruptly discharged from the military.
Further psychiatric treatment followed and gradually Wade’s condition improved, helped partly by becoming an artist.
Wade said he wants to try MDMA-assisted therapy because he believes the trials “really offer some hope to veterans.”
He said it was his understanding that “it gives you a sense of self-love when you’re talking about difficult and ingrained experiences that have become part of a chronic condition.”
Despite many years of conventional therapies “and all my ardent and best efforts to sort of melt the symptoms away,” Wade said he had never been able to eliminate “hyper-vigilance, hyper-arousal and flashbacks and nightmares.”
Wade called for more help for those struggling with PTSD.
“What really irritates me is that when you are in somewhere like Afghanistan, you realise how far missiles are being used at £80,000 per warhead.
“And you think, just if the government would give each veteran that’s really struggling £80,000 worth of therapy.”
