If you were abused as a child or have been raped you could be suffering PTSD -- post-traumatic stress disorder. One of the drugs which scientists believe could help people get over this disorder is actually a popular illegally party drug. Indeed its even illegal for scientists to do studies on the drug, MDMA, better known as ecstasy.

Ecstasy was being used with some success to treat PTSD back in the 1980s before it was made illegal. It was useful because it enabled people to open up their emotions, a difficult thing for PTSD sufferers to do because of the flood of bad emotions that comes rushing in. PTSD sufferers are often given drugs for their condition anyway, such as legal antidepressants.

The antidepressants work by boosting serotonin, the sufferer's happy brain chemical -- but this is just the way ecstasy works! If ecstasy could be given instead, patients might actually be exposed to less mind-altering drugs. This is because legal antidepressants have to be taken for months or even years. Some people end up taking them for life. Yet ecstasy taken just twice seems to be all PTSD victims need to open up to their therapists and deal with their problems.

And ecstasy is not the only drug that holds medical promise.

Some scientists think the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, psilocybin, could help people with obsessive compulsive disorder -- a condition that leaves some so obsessed with last-minute checking they can't even leave the house. And a lot of research was done back in the 1960s showing that LSD could be useful for treating drug addiction.

US psychiatrist John Halpern thinks the hallucinogenic cactus, peyote, could also be a useful medicine. Its active ingredient is mescaline and he thinks it could be helpful for treating alcoholism. Once again, it's difficult to further investigate these claims because the drugs are illegal. Perhaps these potentially dangerous drugs could be freed up for investigation into their potential benefits.