On October 31, 2005, there will be a
panel discussion on Ecstasy Therapy, current status of the drug and
current and future research, at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
The panel will include Sue Stevens, Marc Brandell, Tim Butcher, and
AJ Cook. This event will take place from 5 P.M. to 7P.M. at the Goshen
Lounge, on the main level of the Morris University Center at SIUE. Admittance
is free and all are encouraged to come and take part of this prime opportunity.
For more information please contact mike@stldancesafe.org
or ajcook@stldancesafe.org |
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Sue Stevens is a 35-year-old widowed mother of three. She used MDMA (street name Ecstasy) along with her terminally ill husband, Shane, to help overcome his pain from cancer and to mend the rift the illness had caused in their relationship. Their MDMA usage helped take away their sense of hopelessness and allowed them a chance to discuss the difficult issues surrounding his death. After Shane’s passing in 1999, Sue again used MDMA therapy to help deal with the loss of her soul mate. She traveled to Northern California to visit a therapist whose practice was forced underground by the current laws regarding MDMA. She’s since become a vocal advocate for medicinal MDMA, appearing on numerous TV programs, including "48 Hours" and "Discovery Health," as well as in print in "Time" magazine and the "L.A. Times." Sue lives in New England where she works in hospice care, while continuing to speak out so one day others won’t have to risk incarceration to get the medicine they need. |
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Marc Brandl is a long time activist for drug policy reform in the US. Marc ran a chapter of NORML and SSDP in college. He helped to co-found the national SSDP (Students for Sensible Drug Policy) organization, now the largest student group dedicated to ending the war on drugs in America. Since college he has worked for the Marijuana Policy Project, DRCNet, and the Libertarian Party. At the Libertarian Party he founded College Libertarians of America which gained a presence at over 200 college campuses across America. For the past two years Marc has been the national director of DanceSafe out of Oakland California. DanceSafe is dedicated to bringing harm reduction-based education, outreach and empowerment about drugs to the rave, nightclub and youth communities through volunteer efforts. |
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Tim Butcher is a student researching social psychology, human consciousness, and the effects of perception and media on our ideas of reality. He has been a chief donor for MDMA experiments on animals and humans through MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) since the early 1990’s. He has written a sociological and historical book of the “war on drug,” detailing how current drug policies arose from 19th century panics and represents a kind of “crowd madness.” Mr. Butcher will be discussing the social-scientific distinctions between recreational “ecstasy” use, and its therapeutic potential within medically supervised or controlled settings, as well as strategies for persuading MDMA critics in a divisive anti-drug culture. Some discussion will be dedicated to understanding the drug war as a type of crowd madness, how crowd madness may be contained, and thus how to achieve a more realistic and humanistic response to drug risks in society. |
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AJ Cook is a 28 year old full time activist that has dedicated his like to protecting the rights of individuals and promoting the ideas of harm reduction across the country. After successfully creating the rave and community culture hub Stlouisraver.com, AJ went on to start the St. Louis chapter of DanceSafe, one of the most successful chapters to date in the 501(c) 3 educational organizations. Through this he built community relations with local law enforcement, city and county agencies, and local EMS groups across the Midwest. After being invited to serve on the DanceSafe Board of Directors, AJ spearheaded initiatives with partner organizations such as SSDP, MAPS, and HRC as well as many others for research, grant writing, and collaborative efforts to meet the needs of DanceSafe and its constituents while serving as the CFO. He has also worked on projects with noted research and educational proponents Ann and Sasha Shulgin (Authors of PiHKaL and TiHKaL) also known as the grandfather of MDMA, and has also appeared on the Discovery Channel on an MDMA therapy documentary. AJ has also worked extensively with MDMA and LSD therapists who are re-pioneering the lost therapeutic practices using these substances. Currently, AJ is working through a contract with the Illinois Department of Public Health doing HIV counseling and testing, applying harm reduction, safe sex, and needle exchange teaching and management techniques to those individuals who are in high risk groups. |