Presented by Jon Snow and Dr Christian Jessen, the programmes will include footage of the scientific study alongside a debate exploring issues around the controlled drug. The programmes aim to cut through the emotional debate surrounding the issue and accurately inform the public about the effects and potential risks of MDMA. The programmes also look at whether results from the study could also inform future studies into potential clinical use of the drug, particularly in the therapeutic treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder PTSD.
Volunteers - including actor Keith Allen, novelist Lionel Shriver, a vicar, a former MP and an ex-soldier - will take a 83mg dose of pharmaceutical-grade MDMA as well as, separately, a placebo under laboratory conditions at Imperial College London, supervised by medical staff, before undergoing an fMRI brain scan and a series of cognitive tests to examine MDMA's effects on empathy, trust and memory.
The study, which is funded by Channel 4, has been subject to an ethical approval process for research involving healthy volunteers, who were all screened by medics and psychiatrists before giving their fully-informed consent to take part.
Professors Nutt and Curran retain control over the research, which they plan to submit for publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. The programmes will provide detailed analysis of the neurological and psychological effects of MDMA, the potential risks and consequences of taking the drug both in the short and long-term, and explore the new research into potential therapeutic benefits of MDMA.
Drugs Live: The Ecstasy Trial will include debates featuring people representing a wide range of views on the issues, including scientists, former police, politicians and campaigners, as well as members of the public. But too often the facts - and particularly the science - can become lost in the heat of the argument.
This is a project that only Channel 4 would be brave enough to commission. David Nutt, the Edmond J. Safra Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London, said: "Nearly half a million people are believed to take ecstasy or MDMA every year in the UK, but there has been very little research into what it does in the brain.
This is the first study that will involve brain scans of people taking MDMA while not performing any tasks. I had no idea it could be so powerful and terrifyingly mind altering. And I am someone who worked for three years in a drug dependents day centre. If many who smoke this stuff had ever seen the physical effects on the brain as displayed through the MRI scanner, they would make a more informed judgement as to what they were doing.
This could be interesting. It was just horrible, I felt stoned and stupid. The very smell now repels me. Jenny Bond said: "Nothing made me feel uncomfortable. The fact that I was perhaps hallucinating slightly was quite nice really, it was very floaty feeling.
I didn't like the experience much but certainly didn't hate it. I'll be intrigued to see what all the results are. The double-blind trial, which is being majority funded by Channel 4 with additional funding from DrugScience and the Beckley Foundation, has full ethical approval. On three separate occasions healthy volunteers took controlled doses of different forms of medicinal cannabis as well as a placebo under laboratory conditions at UCL, supervised by medical staff.
Unlike most other studies, which simply ask people what type of cannabis they use, this trial administered carefully measured amounts of cannabis each with a specified chemical profile.
Each had spent two sessions at the hospital, where they had taken 83mg of MDMA or a sugar pill, before lying in a functional magnetic resonance imaging brain scanner. As scientists monitored activity in their brains, they answered questions about their mood and memory. Immediately afterwards, they sat at a computer and rated strangers' faces by how trustworthy they seemed.
Some scientists may have raised an eyebrow at the study. These 25 people were not chosen at random. There was Hayley, the ordained priest, who felt euphoric after the drug, but disconnected from God. Lionel Shriver, the novelist, remained articulate but was disappointed at not getting more. Phil, who was in the SAS and now works "the private military circuit" was the only one, it seemed, to have a bad time.
He talked of fighting the drug, became paranoid and felt so bad the next day, he spent the afternoon in bed. And was it mere luck that the last patient on the trial, who was discharged from hospital during the programme, and came into the studio, seemed to get the drug rather than placebo?
What science came from the study was tentative, but perhaps that reflects how little is known about these drugs.
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