MAPS: MDMA, Parkinson's and Albert Hofmann

[RickMAPS@xxxxxxx]

What follows are more comments about MDMA and Parkinson's, from an exchange 
between Dan Perrine and me. In my last message, I quote from a just-received 
letter from Albert Hofmann. These comments are a bit angry.... 

To Dan:  Thanks for posting this report.   I expect to see a report in JAMA  
any day now linking MDMA and chromosome damage

To Rick:

Yes, isn't it astonishing that a (usually) reasonable journal like NEJM
would publish such specious speculation?  As erowid said, Parkinsonism after
buying a lottery ticket might be as good an explanation....
I suspect that the authors of the letter have two classic problems:  a) they
believe the drug moralizers/hysterics and are terrified of mind-altering
anythings; and b) as physicians confronted with an incurable and terminal
illness in a patient, being emotional cripples by training and preference
like most physicians and unable to provide the appropriate response
(empathetic communion with the grief and terror felt by the patient), they
scramble for some way of blaming the patient, and thus exonerating
themselves for the guilt they feel at not being able to help him.

Yuch.

Mostly, I think I'm just weary, disappointed, and disgusted.
It seems the same dumb prejudices keep coming back over and over.  And from
people who are supposed to try to be objective.

To Dan: 

Weary, disappointed, and disgusted sums up my feelings exactly. I feel 
especially weary but then yesterday got a great letter from Albert Hofmann 
that put things in perspective. Here are several sentences, " But now age 
begins to ask its tribute. Walking has become tiresome, painful after short 
distances. Also heart function and breathing cause me trouble already at 
little efforts...Reduced to the role of observer, I am happy to see how 
engaged the young generation fights in the battle for the right place of 
psychedelics in modern society."

To quote a  500 year old poem that somewhat relates,

"The grave's a fine and private place,
but none I think do there embrace."

yours in solidarity,

Rick


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