The United States and MDMA
In the U.S., the non-profit organization MAPS has been working for years to subsidize research on psychedelics such as psilocybin and MDMA and make their therapeutic properties known in the medical community. Therefore, the studies on psilocybin and MDMA are very positive for later legalization of these drugs. Currently, there are 121 scientific studies investigating the therapeutic effects and therefore it seems that legalization is no longer very far away.
Maps website with information about this nonprofit organization
Medicinal MDMA by 2024 is now the forecast
We expect, given the attention to the therapeutic effects of MDMA and the many ongoing studies, that MDMA assisted therapy will become fully legal in the United States. Therapists are currently being trained by MAPS to be ready for these developments. In fact, the focus on MDMA as a supportive agent is now being seen a lot in various documentaries and politicians and other policy makers are also gaining more confidence to legalize it as a result.
Netflix as a catalyst
How To Change Your Mind is based on the book by Michael Pollan. The book describes well a number of different psychedelic substances and is detailed in this. Each episode is about a different psychedelic and episode 3 is about MDMA. In this episode you can also see a lot from the organization MAPS. Thanks to these documentaries, legalization is being enforced in part because people are eager to do a session in a safe way. This helps policy makers in considering MDMA from the illegal circuit.
When will MDMA therapy become legal in the Netherlands?
The Netherlands once led the way in allowing various types of drugs. However, the Netherlands has fallen behind in this respect due to the rigid policy of recent years. Now we mainly watch and copy what the U.S. and our neighboring countries do. Since the U.S. is likely to categorize MDMA as a drug, the Netherlands is expected to follow. There may be a 1-2 year delay compared to the US due to our bureaucracy. So we expect 2025 or 2026 to be the year MDMA will be legalized. We think it will be classified as a drug and then it will be allowed to be supplied by prescription only. In that case, MDMA sessions may well be reimbursable by health insurance companies and that would be a nice advance.
Doing an MDMA session already?
Legislation in the Netherlands leaves room to be able to do MDMA sessions. Want to know how we can still do MDMA sessions? Send us a message through this link.
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