Many studies that do not actually involve administering psychedelics, such as online surveys, are open to more people. To find out about current research projects and their criteria for volunteers, go to www.maps.org/volunteer.html.

There also are occasional studies in which psychedelics are administered, usually to learn about one or more of the effects of psychedelics ("basic research.") Most of these studies require that participants have some previous experience with the drug under study (marijuana, MDMA or psychedelics). There are a slightly larger number of basic research studies relating to ketamine, in part because of its status as a Schedule II (rather than Schedule 1) drug in the US, and because of noted apparent similarities between some of the effects of ketamine and some of the signs or symptoms of schizophrenia. Finding out about whether any local universities or institutes are doing these studies may require visiting your university or medical school website, or visiting PubMed to find any recent publications.

In the meantime, we can recommend several other options for people seeking personal growth through altered states. Many people have found practices like meditation and yoga to be extremely beneficial. Hypnosis is one method by which some therapists help their clients access deeper states.

Another method is Holotropic Breathwork, created by pioneering psychedelic therapist Stan Grof. This a breathing technique that induces an altered state of consciousness without drugs, usually in the context of a structured experience with evocative music. It offers a gentle introduction to these states, as the intensity of the experience can be somewhat controlled by the breather.

To learn more or find practitioners in your area, go to www.breathwork.com. You can visit the Grof Transpersonal Training site, www.holotropic.com, for more information, including workshop schedules.

For those who can afford it, ayahuasca retreats in Brazil offer a supportive context to use psychedelics for personal and spiritual growth. Go to Wasiwaska.org and Ayahuasca-Healing.net to learn more about two groups that offer retreats.

If you are suffering from addiction, an ibogaine clinic may be able to help. Some of these clinics also treat people without addictions who are interested in personal or spiritual growth. See our ibogaine page for links to ibogaine treatment providers. People addicted to alcohol and drugs can also try contacting Eleusis, a ketamine psychedelic psychotherapy clinic in Florida.

Another online resource is Medline, the database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine, with over 12 million references to scientific journal articles from 1966 to the present. You can access it through PubMed at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed. Most references, however, will include only the abstract (or summary) of an article, not the full text.

A number of concerned women have written MAPS because they took one or two doses of MDMA (ecstasy) before they realized they were pregnant. While the research is limited, it is unlikely that a baby will suffer harmful effects in this situation. We know of quite a few healthy children -including one girl who is now 16- who were conceived on MDMA.

We recommend avoiding taking MDMA if you know you are pregnant! One study has reported that infants born to mothers who have taken MDMA during pregnancy are at increased risk of birth defects, and another study found no abnormalities among babies born to mothers who have used MDMA. While we believe the risk of one or two doses early in pregnancy is probably low, we cannot know for sure until more research is done.

It's also important to note that unless you've sent your pill to a lab for testing, even the usual MDMA testing kits are not going to tell you everything that is in a street Ecstasy pill. This means that you might be exposing yourself and your fetus to unknown drugs, or to compounds like DXM or methamphetamine.

Also see the MAPS MDMA and Pregnancy page at www.maps.org/mdma/pregnancy.html.

We're very interested in collecting more information on this subject. Please write us and let us know how you and your baby are doing!

MAPS hasn't supported any animal studies for more than 10 years and has no intention of funding any for the foreseeable future. However, if we actually do make progress with MDMA psychotherapy research, there may came a time when FDA wants to see more animal research. For that reason, we can't say that MAPS will never engage in animal research. However, we can say that if you did decide to make a donation and then wanted it back as a result of some research that MAPS supported that you found offensive, we would gladly refund your donation. Also, you can earmark your donation to a certain study, like the MDMA/PTSD study or the vaporizer project, or ask that your donation go only to human research.

MAPS previously referred people to the Center for Psychological and Spiritual Health, formerly the Spiritual Emergence Network. Unfortunately, this organization has lost funding for its clinic and hotline. However, they still maintain a website with good links, at www.cpsh.org. They also link to transpersonal sites and organizations in the U.S. and abroad. Another site linked to is Dr. David Lukoff's Spiritual Emergence Resource Center. Stating that spiritual emergence often resembles mental health emergency, this site notes the differences and how to seek help.

For a number of resources on coping with difficult psychedelic experiences, look here.

While many psychedelic experiences are difficult because of issues which the person is facing internally, external factors are often the catalyst for "bad trips." These can be minimized by choosing to enter psychedelic states only in safe, supportive settings. Check out these resources on creating better contexts for psychedelic use.

Basically, no. Imaging studies of ecstasy users have failed to find reductions in dopamine transporter binding (Reneman et al. 2002; Semple et al. 1999) and a post-mortem investigation also failed to find any evidence of reduced dopamine in a heavy ecstasy user (Kish et al. 2000). In September 2002, George Ricaurte and Una McCann published an article in Science magazine claiming that MDMA not only reduces dopamine output, but also causes Parkinson's disease. This article was retracted a year later once it was discovered that the monkeys and baboons used in the study had been "accidentally" administered methamphetamine, instead of MDMA. Further investigation failed to find any dopamine toxicity in monkeys given genuine MDMA (Mechan et al. 2005). To read Rick Doblin's article discussing the implications of the Ricaurte retraction, click here.

To review a timeline chronicling the Ricaurte MDMA controversy, and to find many useful links to research reports and press items related to MDMA research, click here.

On the other hand, there have been several recent studies (Sotnikova et al. 2005, Irvani et al. 2003, Banjaw et al. 2003, Schmidt et al. 2002) that reported a reversal of symptoms of Parkinson's disease in lab animals after being administered MDMA, MDMA-like compounds, such as MDE and MDA, as well as other "non-empathogenic" amphetamines. Much of this research was instigated by the account of a British man with PD who appeared in the media claiming that he gained symptomatic relief after ecstasy use. However, none of the findings suggest that MDMA itself is going to be a suitable PD medication. Even if the lower doses of MDMA or related compounds do treat PD, they are not likely to be a viable, practical solution, since daily dosing with MDMA greatly increases risks of potential neurotoxicity. Moreover, the people most likely to have PD are also likely to have other conditions that make taking MDMA or other amphetamines a bad idea ("contraindications," like high blood pressure, heart problems, or problems with blood vessels in the brain that might pose stroke risk). One study (Sotnikova et al. 2005) administered doses of MDMA that were up to sixty times higher than what could be safely administered to a human subject, meaning that it would be neurotoxic and probably lethal.