Lexicon Valley

For years, psychiatrists have been researching new methods to help people with treatment-resistant mental illness. These include severe cases of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other debilitating diagnoses. One type of drug has seen some positive results in clinical trials: psychedelics like psilocybin, MDMA, ketamine, and LSD. In professional medical settings, they’re used as a part of a multifaceted approach to mental health treatment, including supervised therapy sessions while a patient is on a drug. Recently the pharmaceutical manufacturer Lykos petitioned the FDA to approve the psychedelic MDMA as a part of caring for treatment-resistant PTSD. Earlier this month, an advisory committee to the FDA released their vote of rejecting to approve the drug.  Now it’s up to the FDA to make the final call, but the odds are not in the favor of Lykos and many psychiatrists and patients who’ve seen positive outcomes as a result of these MDMA-assisted trials. Psychiatrist and entrepreneur Dave Rabin is