The world’s first prescription for party drug MDMA has been written by an Australian doctor to help a traumatised psychiatric Patient.
The move comes after MDMA and magic mushrooms were permitted to be prescribed in clinical trials from July 1 last year.
Ted Cassidy, psychiatrist and co-founder of Monarch Mental Health Group (MMHG), wrote the script at the weekend for a female patient suffering chronic, Treatment resistant post-traumatic stress disorder.
Dr Cassidy claims that ‘one day with MDMA assisted therapy achieved more than is usually achieved in a year’.
Doctor Ted Cassidy made history on Saturday when he wrote the world’s first MDMA Psychedelic Assisted Therapy script for a patient with chronic treatment resistant PTSD
Dr Cassidy is the co-founder of Sydney’s Monarch Mental Health Group. Because of NSW regulations he and the patient were forced to travel to Melbourne to write the script
His team had to travel to Melbourne to write the script because of restrictive rules in New South wales.
Dr Cassidy is now asking Premier Chris Minns to change the regulations so that the next patient will not have to leave the state to get the treatment they need.
Dr Cassidy shared the groundbreaking announcement on LinkedIn alongside a photo of the historic script.
Dr Cassidy and his team had been developing the treatment over the past year by building on MMHG’s 10 years of experience in outpatient mental health treatments.
‘It is a career highlight for me – …the very first regular normal script that any doctor has written for a psychedelic medicine in the world,’ he wrote.
‘Today’s treatment is the world’s first Psychedelic Assisted Therapy (PAT) treatment ever given outside of research and compassionate use protocols [and] is built on a history of psychedelic practice back to the dawn of civilisation and across all indigenous cultures.
‘I am proud to have been part of the team at Monarch that has made this the first clinical Psychedelic program available to patients in the world.
‘I am proud that Australia has taken world leadership in translating psychedelic research into clinical reality.’
The treatment method had previously only been used in research and compassionate cases.
A research paper published in Nature Medicine in 2021 found the effects of MDMA on patients with chronic PTSD was extraordinary.
Doctors found that patients receiving the treatment did not suffer adverse events and that MDMA-assisted therapy was safe and well-tolerated.
‘We conclude that MDMA-assisted therapy represents a potential breakthrough treatment that merits expedited clinical evaluation,’ the study concluded.
PTSD is diagnosed when a person goes through a traumatic event and suffers repeated flashbacks where they relive what happened.
MDMA-assisted therapy allows therapists to discuss the underlying traumatic event while patients are dosed with MDMA.
Scientists hope the MDMA will allow the discussion to be had without the patient suffering extreme emotional distress.
The MDMA dose releases ‘feel-good’ hormones which can boost a patient’s mood, and creates a setting for them to open up about their triggers.
Dr Cassidy is calling on premier Chris Minns to re-write the rules around MDMA treatment in NSW so that future patients do not have to travel between cities to receive treatment
Dr Cassidy thanked the staff at MMHG who had helped to get the treatment past its trial stages, including clinical psychologist Monica Schweickle who was the co-therapist for this first treatment.
Dr Schweickle had to travel from Newcastle to Melbourne to assist in the treatment while the patient travelled from rural NSW and Dr Cassidy from Sydney.
Dr Cassidy hopes with the support of the NSW government that this kind of extensive travel will not be needed in the future should the state reform its policies.
He called out the premier and NSW Minister of health Ryan Park to do more to help patients receive the treatment they need in the state they call home.
‘Chris Minns’ NSW Health insists on this treatment happening in a hospital instead of an outpatient treatment centre, contrary to everywhere else in the world,’ he wrote.
‘Let’s do better NSW!’
