Why Addiction Narratives Matter

By Katie Givens Kime

Image courtesy of

Merrimack Repertory Theatre.

“My Higher Power is: Science!” proclaims Sean, a newly recovered alcoholic. “Sean” is the lead character in a comedic play, “The White Chip,” which premiered last year at Merrimac Repertory Theatre outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Written by Sean Daniels, the play dramatizes Daniels’ own near demise from alcoholism, and his experience of recovery. Neuroethics is writ large as the play tells the story of how critically important various addiction etiologies can be for those struggling with alcoholism, or addiction of any sort. In Sean’s case, the etiology is the brain disease model of addiction (BDMA) in a notable combination with the “Higher Power” understanding of 12-step programs, which he credits with saving his life. Behind the curious twists of the play, questions linger: which model of addiction should be presented to those in recovery, when so much conflict exists amongst addiction researchers, clinicians, and recovery care providers? At what point does an effective (potentially life-saving) narrative of addiction etiology supersede the obligation to provide all sides of the controversial matter of addiction modeling?

When Sean “hits bottom,” he has destroyed his career, his marriage, his health, and nearly lost his life while driving drunk. He enters a rehabilitation facility, but struggles with the suggestion that he find a “Higher Power.” Such a practice is reflective of the metaphysical claim central to Alcoholics Anonymous, and every other 12-step program: surrender to a Higher Power of the addict’s understanding, and is perhaps the most significant distinguishing feature separating 12-step methods from other recovery pathways. Perhaps most notable in Sean’s struggle is that he did not see his inability to assent to any sense of a Higher Power as mere philosophical or theological discrepancy. After trying everything, he believed he needed some sort of dramatic internal change, and that his very life hung in the balance.

Finally, Sean meets a different group of A.A. veterans who proclaim to Sean that what he really needs is “Science,” and to understand the chemicals in his brain. The word “brain” occurs 17 times following this scene. In a line that seemingly summarizes Sean’s success in finding sobriety, he says: “People ask me, why did it stick that time? I believed in something larger than myself. My higher power is: science. It’s my faith in science that keeps me sober.” Sean’s Higher Power is the neuromechanisms (“science”) of his own “brain”, which ostensibly has more power than he does, and “wants the best” for him. Britt’s decision to introduce Sean to a particular A.A. group of predominantly Jewish men led to the inner experience/realization that Sean credits with saving his life.

Actors Jeff Binder and Ben Evett in "The White Chip."

Image courtesy of photographer Meghan Moore.

Across medical and social scientific literature, an inverse relationship between spirituality and substance abuse consistently characterizes research findings on recovery from substance use disorders (Geppert et al., 2007; Cook, 2004; Swora, 2004; Dermatis & Galanter, 2016; Ross 2013). Sean’s case is an interesting illustration of this finding, while also mirroring another finding: that the BDMA is immensely prominent in popular and medical discourse, as well as in research funding priorities for addiction.

Notably, the BDMA cannot be traced back to a particular group of scientists, a common thread of articles, or research findings. The most identifiable pivot point for the growth of the BDMA is the former Director of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Alan Leshner’s landmark 1997 Science cover story, “Addiction is a brain disease, and it matters.” In that essay he argues that addictive drugs “hijack the reward centers of the brain” (p. 45). Within several months of Leshner’s article, Bill Moyers used the phrase “hijacked the brain” in 1998 on a PBS television series on addiction, citing Leshner (Lewis, 2015, p. 17). Several historians and researchers of addiction have noted the way in which “hijack” stayed in the vocabulary of addiction for many years after that (Campbell, 2007, p. 201).

In terms of funding, the BDMA has continued to exert notable influence (Dunbar, Kushner & Vrecko, 2010, p. 3). In 2014, NIDA devoted 41% of its funding to basic neuroscience and a further 17% to the development of novel pharmacotherapies based on basic neuroscience, yet only 24% was devoted to epidemiology, health services, and prevention research (Field, 2015). Some researchers have noted the degree to which the accounts of various neuroscientific teams differ on critically important issues, such as which neuromechanisms are relevant for understanding addiction, and even how such mechanisms operate (c.f. Koob & Le Moal, 2006, p. 18-19). Another sort of response is medical anthropologist Daniel Lende’s call for a neuroanthropological theory of addiction rather than a “brain-driven” theory:

Chemical imbalances and hard-wired pleasure circuits have been prominent public explanations advanced by some biologists for addiction. But the real story is more complex, even at the level of neurobiology. Addiction is not simply a chemistry experiment gone wrong, some poor sap in the ‘laboratory of the street’ mixing the wrong substances inside his brain. The parts of the brain where addiction happens are not single, isolated circuits — rather, these areas handle emotions, memory, and choice, and are complexly interwoven to manage the inherent difficulty of being a social self in a dynamic world. (2012, p. 342)

Along with Lende, others have pointed to the problems with the BDMA as a premise for research and/or public understanding of addiction. A fascinating chain of conversations published in the prestigious journal Lancet Psychiatry made public the debates about the validity and value of the BDMA. A NIDA publication preface by Volkow illustrates NIDA's reliance upon the premises of the BDMA, with bold claims like, “As a result of scientific research, we know that addiction is a disease that affects both the brain and behavior” (Volkow, 2014).

Actors Isabel Keating, Jeff Binder, and Ben Evett

in "The White Chip." Image courtesy of

photographer Meghan Moore.

Many social scientists refer to the BDMA as the “NIDA paradigm” (Dunbar, Kushner & Vrecko, 2010, p. 3). When challenged on the lack of conclusive evidence for the BDMA, Volkow’s chief defense is a pragmatic one: that the BDMA frees those suffering from addiction from the shame of morality models of addiction, which continue to linger. The loudest response to this argument comes from neuroscientists and others who argue for something along the lines of a “learning disorder” model of addiction. Marc Lewis, a neuroscientist who struggled with drug addiction in his 20s, argues that "the disease idea is wrong...Medical researchers are correct that the brain changes with addiction, but the way it changes has to do with learning and development -- not disease” (2015, p. xi). Lewis’ concerns are reflective of questions raised by other scholars, such as psychiatrist Sally Satel and psychologist Scott O. Lilienfeld (2013, 2014). However, Volkow’s point remains: to claim that addiction is a disease rooted in brain mechanisms seems to carry far more weight with people trying to recover, and those surrounding them.

In “The White Chip,” Sean is an intelligent and accomplished adult – why can’t he just stop? No explanation freed him from his sense of shame and defeat so much as an etiology that incorporated neurological mechanism. Sean incorporated the most important mechanisms into the script of his play, with characters “Lenny” and “Stuart” serving to tell the story of his most important conversations with members of the group:

LENNY: Here’s the truth - Dopamine is the chemical that when it’s released in your brain, you feel great. The drug that’s been in your brain since you were born.

STUART: Your brain is always trying to maintain balance, and therefore the more you drink, the less dopamine your brain releases.

LENNY: Your brain is with you all the times you snuck a drink, so when you say…

STUART: ‘‘I’m quitting, I really mean it this time…really!’’

LENNY: Your brain doesn’t believe you. So, on Day 2 of sobriety you have no alcohol and no dopamine from your brain, because it’s sure the alcohol is coming.

STUART: So, you feel terrible.

LENNY: Your body is signaling you that it needs you to hold up your end of the current destructive bargain.

STUART: So terrible.

LENNY: That spiritual awakening most drunks feel around Day 90 when they look up and suddenly the sky is bluer and everything seems like it’s gonna work out, and they get on their knees and thank god -- that’s chemistry.

STUART: That’s your brain FINALLY believing you that you won’t drink and therefore it releases chemicals into your brain to maintain balance.

LENNY: Yes, you will walk out the door and suddenly feel light and notice trees and children and feel happy to be alive, and that MAY be god, but it is definitely chemistry. Just stop drinking for 90 days and let science save your life.

…LENNY: Don’t worry kid -- most people are dopamine junkies -- they just think it’s free will.

…LENNY: So, to stay sober, you have to fight your own brain. Fight chemistry with reason.

It seems that if Sean’s safety is the top priority, than perhaps any narrative he holds about the etiology of addiction, so long as it keeps him from drinking again, is worth supporting. If this is true, then perhaps NIDA has it right: the BDMA is highly effective at battling the overwhelming social stigma of addiction as a lack of willpower, or some other sort of individual fortitude. On the other hand, critics raise valid concerns about the inaccuracy, or at least unfounded nature, of the concept of addiction as a “brain disease.”

In Sean’s monologue near the end of the play, he proposes several reasons why this formulation of Higher Power as “Science” allowed him to maintain sobriety when all other methods had failed:

SEAN: ... It’s my faith in science that keeps me sober. Though it seems to work for the vast majority, and I never try to talk anybody out of it -- ever ever ever - it does make you think, how many people are like me, and then don’t make it because we lead with God and not with science? Does belief in one exclude the other?

Actor Jeff Binder, playing "Sean" in "The White Chip."

Image courtesy of photographer Meghan Moore.

Whether or not these beliefs and etiologies about the nature of addiction exclude one another, it is illuminating to hold the example of Sean alongside the stacks of literature and research debating various models of addiction. At its best, neuroethics often takes up the task of performing reflexivity for the field of neuroscience, urging a critical look at the presumptions on which the discipline is based, and the repercussions of them. For addiction, what are the repercussions of what Vidal (2009) notes is the dominating presence of “brainhood” in contemporary discourse, in which the modern self operating principally as a “cerebral subject”? Sean’s case is a fascinating portrait of personifying “science” as an entity, and a trustworthy belief system of sorts, while also viewing his “brain” as an entity simultaneously identical with his self, while also separate. In some ways, Sean’s contradictory view of himself calls to mind what Jan De Vos (2016, p. 26) describes as “the situation of the colourful brain scan engendering an oh-my-god-is-this-what-I-am subject.” In other ways, it is a reminder that we all carry with us, in our views of the world and ourselves, various paradoxes and contradictions.

In the end, what responsibility do clinicians and caregivers have, in providing care and recovery options, to offer multiple models and etiologies of addiction, for people who struggle like Sean? It seems that if saving lives is our top priority, then finding the models that are most compelling for each individual struggling to recover is a worthy consideration.

References



Campbell, N. D. (2007). Discovering addiction?: The science and politics of substance abuse research. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.



Campbell, N. D. (2010). Toward a critical neuroscience of “addiction.” BioSocieties, 5(1), 89–104.



Cook, C. C. H. (2004). Addiction and spirituality. Addiction, 99(5), 539–551.



De Vos, J. & Pluth, E. (2016). Neuroscience and critique: exploring the limits of the neurological turn. Abingdon, UK?; New York: Routledge.



Dunbar, D., Kushner, H. I., & Vrecko, S. (2010). Drugs, addiction and society. BioSocieties, 5(1), 2–7.



Earley, P. H. (2017). RecoveryMind Training: A neuroscientific approach to treating addiction. Las Vegas: Central Recovery Press.



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Dermatis, H., & Galanter, M. (2016). The role of twelve-step-related spirituality in addiction recovery. Journal of Religion and Health, 55(2), 510–521.



Field, M. (2015, February 6). Addiction is a brain disease…but does it matter? Retrieved February 16, 2017, from https://www.nationalelfservice.net/mental-health/substance-misuse/addiction-is-a-brain-diseasebut-does-it-matter/



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Koob, G. F., & Moal, M. L. (2005). Neurobiology of addiction (1st ed.). San Diego: Academic Press.



Lende, D. H. (2012). Addiction and neuroanthropology. In D. H. Lende & G. Downey (Eds.), The encultured brain: an introduction to neuroanthropology (pp. 339–362). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.



Leshner, A. I. (1997). Addiction is a brain disease, and it matters. (Cover story). Science, 278(5335), 45–47.



Lewis, M. (2015). The biology of desire: Why addiction is not a disease. New York: PublicAffairs.



O’Connor, R. (2015). Rewire: Change your brain to break bad habits, overcome addictions, conquer self-destructive behavior (Reprint ed.). New York: Plume.



Ross, S. (2013, April). Psilocybin, addiction, and end of life. Presented at the Psychedelic Science Conference, Oakland, CA.



Satel, S. L., & Lilienfeld, S. O. (2013). Brainwashed: the seductive appeal of mindless neuroscience. New York: Basic Books.



Satel, S., & Lilienfeld, S. O. (2014). Addiction and the brain-disease fallacy. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 4.



Spiegelman, E. (2015). Rewired: A bold new approach to addiction and recovery. Hobart, NY: Hatherleigh Press.



Swora, M. G. (2004). The rhetoric of transformation in the healing of alcoholism: The twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 7(3), 187–209.



Szalavitz, M. (2016a). Unbroken brain: A revolutionary new way of understanding addiction. New York: St. Martin’s Press.



Szalavitz, M. (2016b, June 25). Can you get over an addiction? New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/opinion/sunday/can-you-get-over-an-addiction.html



Trujols, J. (2015). The brain disease model of addiction: challenging or reinforcing stigma? The Lancet Psychiatry, 2(4), 292.



Vidal, F. (2009). Brainhood, anthropological figure of modernity. History of the Human Sciences, 22(1), 5–36.



Volkow, N. D. (2014). Preface: How science has revolutionized the understanding of drug addiction. In Drugs, brains, and behavior: The science of addiction. Washington, DC: National Institute on Drug Abuse.



Volkow, N. D., & Koob, G. (2015). Brain disease model of addiction: why is it so controversial? The Lancet Psychiatry, 2(8), 677–679.

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Kime, K.G. (2017). Why Addiction Narratives Matter. The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on , from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2017/03/why-addiction-narratives-matter.html

The Army's on Ecstasy: Marching toward an ethical drug policy

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among American soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan has reached epidemic proportions, affecting between 75,000 to 225,000 veterans. In fact, suicide is now the leading cause of death in the army, with more soldiers dying by suicide than in combat. Frustratingly, existing treatments for PTSD are limited and ineffective for between 25-50% of patients. Last year a clinical trial using MDMA (i.e. Ecstasy) in conjunction with psychotherapy was shown to ameliorate PTSD symptoms far more effectively than any other known treatment. Despite these promising results, it could be ten years or more before MDMA is approved for use in treating PTSD, and even then clinicians will face additional hurdles until our nation’s drug policy is seriously overhauled. Given the public health imperative for effective PTSD treatment, it’s high time to rethink our stance toward illegal drugs and create an ethical drug policy that paves the way for expedient psychedelics research while providing honest education, harm reduction measures, and on-demand treatment for drug addiction.



PTSD is a chronic, debilitating mental illness. People with PTSD are hyperaroused, repeatedly re-experience their trauma in the form of nightmares, panic attacks, and flashbacks, and often suffer from comorbid depression and drug abuse. The army's own research illustrates that trauma is widespread and long-lasting: around 25% of Vietnam veterans remain symptomatic, even decades after the end of their service. The army is fully aware of this growing issue, and has taken many steps over the years to address it, including the formation of the National Center for PTSD within the US Department of Veterans Affairs, which has emerged as the world’s leading research and educational center on PTSD. The Obama administration has also increased funding for mental health services at the VA by 39% since 2009. Despite these and other efforts, the statistics are alarming: about 18 veterans take their lives each day.



PTSD treatment typically involves pharmacotherapy, psychotherapy, or some combination of both. To date, the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) sertraline and paroxetine are the only two FDA-approved drugs to treat PTSD, although others are prescribed off-label. Meta-analyses, which pool data from dozens of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) to try to assess drug efficacy, have found SSRIs to be slightly more effective than placebo, with about 50% of RCTs finding medication to be more effective than placebo in reducing PTSD symptoms. However, SSRIs take several weeks to begin working, often have undesirable side-effects, and many patients fail to respond at all. Psychotherapeutic approaches for PTSD include cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and psychodynamic psychotherapy, which are often effective, although attrition rates are high and many never respond. Clinicians and researchers alike recognize the need for more treatments, and the army is scrambling to find them, even exploring mindfulness-based therapies, such as loving-kindness meditation.

MDMA-assisted psychotherapy offers hope for those suffering from PTSD, but the US' fear-based approach to drug policy and education has delayed its development into an approved medicine. (credit: www.maps.org/)

The trick to successful PTSD psychotherapy is to hit the “window of tolerance,” wherein the patient is neither over- nor under-aroused while revisiting his past trauma. Within this sweet spot, the patient can work through difficult emotions without overwhelming anxiety (hyperarousal) or numbing detachment (underarousal). Finding this zone is tricky, requiring the establishment of a trusting patient-therapist relationship, a degree of introspective awareness by the patient, and massive amounts of courage. This may sound simple, but many veterans have spent months, years, or even decades in silence, repressing and suffering through their traumatic memories and emotions. Additionally, therapy within the optimal arousal zone must be ongoing; it’s not a one-shot deal. If therapists or scientists could devise a means by which patients with PTSD could widen, maintain, and more quickly establish this openness, therapy sessions could deliver results more quickly and effectively. And this is exactly where MDMA comes in.

MDMA, known by its street name, Ecstasy, is a psychoactive drug that produces feelings of euphoria, a sense of intimacy with others, and diminished anxiety. It belongs to a class of drugs known as “empathogens,” or “entactogens,” implying that its effects (typically 4-6 hours in duration) increase one’s ability to empathize or feel. MDMA was first synthesized a hundred years ago, but was popularized by the organic chemist, Alexander Shulgin, in the 1970’s. Shulgin himself experimented with the drug and shared it with colleagues and friends, some of whom began using it in psychotherapy sessions. Among underground psychotherapists, MDMA developed a reputation for enhancing communication during clinical sessions, reducing patients’ psychological defenses, and increasing capacity for therapeutic introspection. By the early 1980’s, an estimated 500,000 doses of underground MDMA had been consumed under the code name "Adam," with the media and drug enforcement agencies taking no notice of that use, as sessions were conducted in private settings and didn't produce problems (see Rosenbaum & Doblin for an historical account).



But this soon changed, as MDMA spilled out into the club scene and the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) took notice. In response to impending drug legislation, the medical community presented their research findings to DEA Administrative Judge Francis L. Young, who recommended that MDMA be placed under Schedule III, meaning it had medicinal value but may lead to dependency or abuse (by comparison, Ritalin is a Schedule II substance due to its medicinal value but higher potential for abuse). But in the mid-80’s, Ronald Reagan’s “War on Drugs” was raging, and the DEA placed MDMA under Schedule I, the most restrictive status for a controlled substance. From then until today, federal law states that MDMA has “no currently accepted medical use in treatment” and “a lack of accepted safety for use…under medical supervision.”



This ruling proved devastating for research into the potential therapeutic benefit of MDMA. In spite of the legislation, researchers persisted in their attempts to study the drug’s cognitive and behavioral effects and to prove that it was safe for responsible use by the medical community. But roadblocks to the timely progress of their research were insurmountable. Researchers around the world were pressing for more studies on the potential therapeutic benefits of MDMA in treating psychiatric disorders, such as pain, anxiety, depression, and most importantly, PTSD. Between 1986 and 1988, five different applications for permission to conduct double-blind, controlled studies with MDMA in human subjects were submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). All were summarily rejected. Scientists quickly became hip to the fact that securing government approval, obtaining drug licenses, and gaining institutional review board (IRB) support for human studies were both untimely and cost-prohibitive, and so human MDMA research ground to a standstill. Psychiatrists, with their careers and licenses at stake, abandoned their clinical use of the drug. And with that, the hope that MDMA could some day ameliorate the suffering of the many PTSD-afflicted men and women returning home from armed combat disappeared.



Fast-forward to 2001. After sixteen years of sustained effort, Dr. Rick Doblin, founder and director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelics Research (MAPS), a non-profit research and educational organization that supports scientific research into therapeutic uses for psychedelics, finally obtained FDA approval for an MDMA-assisted psychotherapy study. Nevertheless, it took Dr. Doblin and other investigators three more years of battling with the DEA and Independent Review Boards (IRBs) before the first experimental session with MDMA-assisted psychotherapy was carried out in a PTSD patient (for a brief history, see Check 2004). The study was finally completed in 2008 and its overwhelmingly promising results published in 2010 (see below). That’s a full nine years from FDA approval to results and publication. (Comprehensive information about MDMA-assisted psychotherapy research can be found here.)

The first Phase II clinical trial using MDMA-assisted psychotherapy to treat PTSD finds that 83% of subjects receiving MDMA no longer met PTSD-criteria after two months, compared to only 25% in the placebo group. (Mithoefer et al., 2011. J Psychopharmacol. 25(4):439-52)

 I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Doblin about why MDMA/PTSD research over the years has been so painfully slow. According to Dr. Doblin, there remains “a delay that takes place with MDMA research because of drug policy.” Doblin explained that as a Schedule I controlled substance, MDMA could take another 10 years before it’s rolled out for use to treat PTSD. He believes that this is largely due to the unscientific, fear-based approach that the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), DEA, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) have taken in their drug education and policymaking, and the reticence of scientific researchers to advocate on behalf of a sensible, empirically-driven approach toward drug policy. The government, especially the DEA and NIDA, continues to balk at research that poses, as Doblin puts it, “a threat to NIDA’s educational campaign.”



Doblin believes that this educational campaign is based on the notion that “drug use goes up when the perception of risk goes down.” Consequently, drug education programs exaggerate the risk of any and all illicit drugs, even when the science clearly dictates otherwise. Cannabis is an obvious example. Despite its medicinal applications for patients with cancer, chronic pain, and insomnia, the government has opted to “sacrifice those patients and those benefits because [they] want to tell a story to people” that cannabis is exceedingly dangerous. And the same sacrifice is now being made with MDMA for PTSD. The government’s basic argument is that they “can’t have unfettered scientific explanations because if it proves that some of these drugs are beneficial in some way, that will send the ‘wrong’ message to people. Therefore, they have to block science because there may be some inconvenient findings. Drug abuse prevention should instead be based on honest information. If you can start with that, everything is different, and you’re not scared of research that may show potential benefits.”



The government’s current scheme raises a number of ethical concerns. Obstructing scientific progress or misrepresenting scientific evidence to fit a political agenda harms scientists, patients, and society at large. The mission of mental health scientists in the US, as stated by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is to “transform the understanding and treatment of mental illnesses through basic and clinical research, paving the way for prevention, recovery, and cure.” However, in the case of developing novel therapies using recreational drugs like MDMA, drug policy prevents scientists from paving that road. This is simply unethical. As Doblin clearly stated, “when scientists see that politics is blocking their research, they have an obligation to point that out.” Scientists should challenge such practices by speaking out in public forums, participating in educational programs that promulgate evidence-based information, and supporting political organizations that advocate drug policy reform, such as the Drug Policy Alliance. Patients, in this case trauma survivors, must also make their voices heard by massively mobilizing against bureaucratic maneuvering that impedes their fair, timely access to effective treatments. For veterans with PTSD, their lives literally depend on it. Those who don’t suffer from PTSD or conduct research using controlled substances must examine the value they place on scientific inquiry, even when it challenges their preconceived social, political, or religious notions. At play here is also the broader issue of cognitive liberty, whether an individual is free to alter the state of his or her consciousness using any method available. This includes stimulants like Ritalin for cognitive enhancement in healthy adults, psychedelics like MDMA for informal psychotherapy, and LSD and psilocybin for spiritual visionaries. Do we really want to live in a society where the limits of human curiosity, creativity, and well-being are restricted? Hopefully, conversations about how best to expand and protect these freedoms while minimizing harm will permeate public dialogue.



In summary, this country is slowly emerging from a dark age in drug policy. Government regulators are just beginning to take a more reasoned approach toward research into stigmatized illegal drugs like MDMA, but a long road lies ahead. Even though the present administration has eschewed the term, the “War on Drugs,” and stated that “drug policies must be rooted in science,” its Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske, still believes that cannabis is “a dangerous drug,” and that the “Just Say No” campaign is one of the “major successes” of drug education. Progress is slow, indeed, and will require a grassroots, coordinated effort to effect significant change. As our service men and women continue to suffer, and the low-hanging fruit of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy remains out of their reach for at least a decade more, it is now our duty to serve them and advocate for a science-based drug policy that clears the path for psychedelics in treating mental illness.





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Kohn, J. (2012). The Army’s on Ecstasy: Marching Toward an Ethical Drug Policy. The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on
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