the ecstatic belly...

This Piece of Art Is Made Out of 4,000 Ecstasy Pills...

And you could win it by entering a competition whose proceeds go towards a brilliant cause.

Cult British artist Chemical X has donated his £50,000 artwork "Rush" to a competition for the drugs harm reduction charity The Loop, as they raise funds for their life-saving drug-testing labs. The Safe Sesh campaign, which seeks to promote the idea that people are going to use drugs no matter what, so should know how to use them as safely as possible – something The Loop's services enable them to do.

For just £2, you can enter the contest, support The Loop's work and have a chance to adorn your walls with an artwork made of 4,111 Yin-Yang pills. It's a woozy piece that – if you watch it for long enough – actually feels a bit like being on ecstasy; your vision turning soft focus at the peripheries as you trace new shades and forms in a swirling sea of pingers.

Chemical X is most famous for designing the iconic Ministry of Sound logo, and over three decades has produced a body of work that deals with the romance and relevance of drug culture.

Why did you get involved with The Loop?

I'm pro informed-choice. No one can tell a grown person what they can and can't do to themselves. The Loop deal with reality. They are not about legalisation, but they are also not about encouragement. As Fiona Measham [co-founder of The Loop] says: they are the last line of defence. A practical solution to a real problem. What your pill or powder contains is a total mystery that you are only going to solve by taking it. That is not the best plan of action. I have witnessed The Loop's process firsthand, and I'm an evangelical supporter of everything Fiona and her amazing volunteers do.

How did ecstasy affect your development as an artist?

It's affected my development as a person, and so has affected my development as an artist. I wanted my recent series of works to reflect the cultural impact that ecstasy has had on this country over the last 30 years. I don't know what kind of place the UK would be without its influence. I'm old enough to remember how shit everything was at clubs and pubs before it became mainstream [in the mid-1980s]. You'd expect to be involved in violence before the night was out, at the hands of some pissed-up cunt who hated the look of your haircut. The youth were very fragmented at that time, and tribal. You needed to be one thing or the other. Ecstasy broke down some of those barriers and we started to interact with people who we would never have before. How can that be a bad thing?

Do you think there's a romance in taking ecstasy?

There is so much romance in taking ecstasy. Your everyday inhibitions fall away and you're left with such a feeling of love, warmth, empathy. When I first had a pill, in the 80s, I thought it was the perfect drug. I shared some beautiful moments with friends and lovers that I would never have experienced without it.

"Rush" seems to show the mellow side to ecstasy. Not all the bright colours and smiley faces and Bez dancing.

There is a very relaxing and mediative side to MDMA that you don't focus on, unless you happen to be lying in a field instead of dancing like a demon. Rush is meant to be more representative of water, balance, of motion and purpose. That's why they are all Yin-Yang pills, and a mixture of dark and light. You have a sense of being drawn into something; a portal to pleasure or pain.

Have you looked at your pictures on ecstasy or had other people do so?

I haven't, but I'd love to put them in a room full of people who were on it. It's more difficult for me to divorce myself from the image and how I perceive it. I love when people see something [in my work] that I hadn't intended. It gives them some ownership over it. Seeing the work through spangled eyes would create a whole new piece that would only exist in that moment, in their mind's eye. Never to be seen again. It's a nice concept.

Have you thought about who might win the picture?

I'm really looking forward to seeing who wins it. It's quite a large and imposing piece, and I can't wait to see if it ends up on some kid's bedroom wall in Walsall, or a swanky pad in Padstow. I'd probably prefer the former, but I just want as many people as possible to enter, as all proceeds go to The Loop. I also hope that, whoever wins it, they don't try to open it.

Are they real pills?

No, we have had to make those as replica pills, otherwise we'd get The Loop in serious trouble. However, we do make private commissions.

dominoes...

200mg pink...

All clear for the decisive trial of ecstasy in PTSD patients...

MDMA is better known as the party drug ecstasy.

One of the main targets in the war on drugs could well become a drug to treat the scars of war. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has designated 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), better known as the illegal drug ecstasy, a "breakthrough therapy" for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a status that may lead to faster approval.

The agency has also approved the design for two phase III studies of MDMA for PTSD that would be funded by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), a nonprofit in Santa Cruz, California. MAPS announced the "breakthrough therapy" designation, made by FDA on 16 August, on its website today; if the group can find the money for the trials, which together could cost an estimated $25 million, they may start next spring and finish by 2021.

That an illegal dancefloor drug could become a promising pharmaceutical is another indication that the efforts of a dedicated group of researchers interested in the medicinal properties of mind-altering drugs is paying dividends. Stringent drug laws have stymied research on these compounds for decades. "This is not a big scientific step," says David Nutt, a neuropsychopharmacologist at Imperial College London. "It's been obvious for 40 years that these drugs are medicines. But it's a huge step in acceptance."

Since 2012, FDA has designated close to 200 drugs as breakthrough therapies, a status that indicates there's preliminary evidence that an intervention offers a substantial improvement over other options for a serious health condition. The agency aims to help develop and review these treatments faster than other candidate drugs.

In people with PTSD, a small sensory trigger such as a sound or a smell can bring a traumatic memory rushing back. "The disabling element of PTSD is the fact that when the memory starts, the emotions completely override you and overwhelm the brain," Nutt says. Studies suggest that MDMA can dampen the emotional response to the memory, allowing people to relive their trauma and work through it, he says. The MDMA-treatment consists of several sessions of psychotherapy, some conducted while the patient is under the influence of the drug.

MAPS Executive Director Rick Doblin set up the group in 1986, one year after the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration made MDMA an illegal drug, because he was convinced of its therapeutic potential. Since then, MAPS has poured millions into trials of MDMA, for PTSD and other conditions, and has taken the lead in conducting them. The FDA designation is "kind of a public acknowledgement of the promise of this research," Doblin says.

A small U.S. study that first suggested MDMA could help treat PTSD was published in 2011. Since then, researchers in Canada, Israel, and the United States have jointly carried out larger phase II trials funded by MAPS; their results, which remain unpublished but have been reviewed by the FDA, were very good, says Doblin. Overall, 107 participants who had suffered from PTSD for an average of 17.8 years were treated in the phase II trials, Doblin says. Of the 90 patients who were available to be studied 12 months later, 61 no longer had PTSD.

In late July, says Doblin, MAPS and FDA agreed on how the coming phase III trials—usually the last hurdle before seeking a drug's approval from regulators—should be conducted. A key issue that has dogged randomized controlled trials of MDMA and other mind-altering drugs is how to minimize bias. In many trial designs, some patients receive a drug while others are in a control group that receives a placebo. The participants aren't told which they received, but patients who get MDMA can often tell, which might have an effect all by itself.

In past studies, patients in the control arm received a low dose of MDMA—a so-called "active placebo"—that made it harder for them to tell in which group they were. But that had a negative effect on the outcome of their psychotherapy, says Doblin, making MDMA look better by comparison. A low dose "activates people, but it does not provide the fear reduction that the full doses would and so they are more uncomfortable, more unhappy," Doblin says.

That's why FDA decided it would be better to test MDMA-assisted psychotherapy against psychotherapy with an inactive placebo. But the agency and MAPS agreed on additional measures to ensure that the doctors who evaluate the patients don't know if they received the real drug.

The biggest hurdle now is raising the money for the two phase III trials, which together will include between 200 and 300 participants. So far MAPS has raised only $12.75 million, about half of its goal, and an effort to crowdfund the rest has been disappointing. "I think the money will come from major donors," Doblin says. "We are going to people in the tech world and family foundations, but we're also trying with the Veterans Administration." The first phase III trial will start no matter what, he says. "It's always been the philosophy of MAPS that if we can do the work, the money will follow."

MAPS has not conducted trials in Europe yet but is planning to start discussion with the European Medicines Agency, the European Union's regulatory body, soon. Nutt says that after overcoming major regulatory hurdles, he is about to start a trial using MDMA to treat alcohol addiction.

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