How a dose of MDMA transformed a white supremacist

June 15, 2023 5:24 PM

Brendan was once a leader in the US white nationalist movement. But when he took the drug MDMA in a scientific study, it would radically change his extremist beliefs – to the surprise of everyone involved.
posted by Fiasco da Gama (47 comments total)

Wow, that was just FASCINATING.

I would love a magical solution to hatred and division, so it's disappointing to read that MDMA probably isn't going to cure us all of our biases immediately (or at all, sigh). But I like the tempered optimism of so many of the people in the article:

"I kind of have a fantasy that maybe as we get more reacquainted with psychedelics, there could be group-based experiences that build community resiliency and are intentionally oriented toward breaking down barriers between people, having people see things from other perspectives and detribalising our society," says psychiatrist Franklin King at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. "But that's not going to happen on its own. It would have to be intentional, and – if it happens – it would probably take multiple generations."

Anything that amplifies love among us seems like a good thing to me. Even if it can't change everyone overnight, it sounds like the change that took place in Brendan is continuing and growing as he rebuilds his relationship to others.

This is so interesting to me, and I'm glad to know about it. Thank you so much for posting this, Fiasco da Gama!
posted by kristi at 5:39 PM on June 15, 2023 [13 favorites]

"A change of perspective is worth 80 IQ points" -- Alan Kay
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 6:10 PM on June 15, 2023 [15 favorites]

In a 2010 study published in Science, for example, men who inhaled oxytocin

This reminds me of a post I did a while back about how all the intranasal oxytocin research is probably bunk. But I digress. Carry on.
posted by clawsoon at 6:14 PM on June 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

I’ve often jokingly said that if you want world peace your best chance is to make everybody do MDMA, I still stand by that. But I do agree that only doing the trip is not enough, you need something to start the reflections.

I remember hearing stories of Israelis/Palestinians making peace during raves through some drug induced moment of empathy.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 6:37 PM on June 15, 2023 [8 favorites]

you need something to start the reflections

I suggest The Chemical Brothers - Surrender album. A deeply favorite MDMA album of mine.
posted by hippybear at 6:52 PM on June 15, 2023 [6 favorites]

There was a viral tweet a while back I bought a guy who was libertarian until he took MDMA and realize that other people have feelings.
But I also have a friend who used to be a libertarian until he got sober and now is a lawyer doing great work in the public interest.
posted by Jon_Evil at 7:43 PM on June 15, 2023 [25 favorites]

Sorry that should say viral tweet about a guy, I missed the edit window and my autocorrect is the worst.
posted by Jon_Evil at 8:10 PM on June 15, 2023 [4 favorites]

you need something to start the reflections

Having blown up your life by being a white nationalist and lying about it and living in the financial and emotional wreckage of your lies might make a body reconsider things even if they weren't taking MDMA.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 8:31 PM on June 15, 2023 [8 favorites]

Way back in the day a friend of mine got a steady connection to some ecstasy and once described it to a very bright neighbor who was an older divinity student. "Oh my God," my friend said, "It was like it opened up this feeling of unlimited love in my heart..." To which the divinity student, who turned out to have experience with the topic, responded "Oh no, it's that it temporarily shuts down the fear that masks the unlimited love that was always there inside you." That story has always stuck with me.
posted by y2karl at 8:40 PM on June 15, 2023 [102 favorites]

That's... exactly what my experiences with it have been. It takes away the barricades that keep you from being you. I wish I should get good stuff these days.
posted by hippybear at 8:47 PM on June 15, 2023 [7 favorites]

It's like all the hedgehogs don't have spines after all.
posted by grobstein at 9:25 PM on June 15, 2023

"Oh no, it's that it temporarily shuts down the fear that masks the unlimited love that was always there inside you."

It's about bein' in love and lovin' the love that's hatin' the love that loves and lovin' the hateless love that revolves around the loveless hate that's a hateless love and the love that's love and the love and the hate that's hate and the love that's the love and the hate.
posted by flabdablet at 9:47 PM on June 15, 2023 [6 favorites]

Turn on, tune in, drop out.
posted by Phanx at 10:24 PM on June 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

That's not all... it taught me how to dance.
posted by a non e mouse at 11:27 PM on June 15, 2023 [4 favorites]

Maybe there's something better on another channel.
posted by y2karl at 11:29 PM on June 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

These days, tbh, I’m more like ‘tune on, turn in, drop off’.
posted by Phanx at 11:56 PM on June 15, 2023 [5 favorites]

I posted this out of fascination with the tension between the structural, historical nature of racism and the limits of any individual approach to limiting hatred, and because even though this man is obviously exceptional as a former White Nationalist this kind of thing does offer hope that deradicalisation can work, but also to make the obvious joke:

🎶 take the skinheads rolling, take them rolling 🎶
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 11:57 PM on June 15, 2023 [24 favorites]

All You Need Is Love
John Lennon

With a Little Help from My Friends
John Lennon -- Paul McCartney

Two songs, untold millions of lives changed, many utterly transformed
posted by dancestoblue at 12:55 AM on June 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

One of the sadder things about becoming an old is you gradually lose access to mdma and the like. Eventually, you have no idea where to find anything, and nothing screams “narc” like an old sniffing around for a little recreational fun/help.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:53 AM on June 16, 2023 [33 favorites]

Fascinating article, don't think it'll surprise anyone who's spent quality time with that particular phenylethylamine.

It makes me think of the (anecdotal but widely so) stories of how football violence in the UK dropped significantly in the early 90s once ecstasy became widespread on the terraces.
posted by protorp at 2:00 AM on June 16, 2023 [6 favorites]

I’ve often jokingly said that if you want world peace your best chance is to make everybody do MDMA

They could settle wars with this, if only they will / Imagine the world's leaders on pills / And imagine the morning after / Wars causing disaster / Don't talk to me, I don't know ya
The Streets, Weak become Heroes
posted by yoHighness at 2:21 AM on June 16, 2023 [3 favorites]

Following on from what protorp said, in my own direct experience in the northern UK rave scene in 1989-90 I met several supporters of the various football clubs around Manchester and Liverpool who described how they would consume ecstasy on the terraces every Saturday and then in the warehouses at night would meet supporters from rival teams and dance together and talk and hug instead of fighting. The banter and club loyalty were still there but the violence disappeared.

Still anecdotal I suppose, but definitely a thing I experienced and that people in the scene talked about at the time.

Also relevant: during my later time in the rave scene in Texas in 93-94 we knew one guy who had grown up in a neo-Nazi home with violently racist views (to the extent that he had a huge swastika and other Nazi symbols and texts tattooed across his chest) who described taking MDMA for the first time at a rave and finding himself being hugged by a fellow raver who was black. He claimed this led him to choose to leave his past behind and cut ties with his family.

I have no idea what happened to him longer term, and the guy still had some serious personality issues which were problematic even then but I sincerely hope he continued to grow.
posted by JohnnyForeign at 3:17 AM on June 16, 2023 [20 favorites]

The excitotoxic effects are real, and MDMA makes you feel empathy as it kills some of the cells that are necessary for you to be able to feel empathy in the first place.

If you took it when you were young and it changed your life but now you can’t find it, count yourself lucky.
posted by jamjam at 4:48 AM on June 16, 2023 [7 favorites]

Having blown up your life by being a white nationalist and lying about it and living in the financial and emotional wreckage of your lies might make a body reconsider things even if they weren't taking MDMA.

A lot of people in this thread have never hated as hard as they've tripped, and don't really understand that they're both drugs.
posted by mhoye at 5:05 AM on June 16, 2023 [5 favorites]

Persons in excitotoxic shock must never fall into hypoglycemia. Patients should be given 5% glucose (dextrose) IV drip during excitotoxic shock to avoid a dangerous build up of glutamate around NMDA and AMPA neurons.[citation needed] When 5% glucose (dextrose) IV drip is not available high levels of fructose are given orally.

Those candy bracelets...
posted by subdee at 5:16 AM on June 16, 2023 [7 favorites]

One of the sadder things about becoming an old is you gradually lose access to mdma and the like. Eventually, you have no idea where to find anything, and nothing screams “narc” like an old sniffing around for a little recreational fun/help.

I heard from a friend that Darknet Markets might solve this problem...

Also, all the cool kids are practicing harm reduction. Fentanyl contamination is an invisible killer.
Get your drugs tested.
posted by neonamber at 6:12 AM on June 16, 2023 [7 favorites]

What's interesting about Brendan's experience is that he says it deeply changed him emotionally, but that he still struggles with racist, hateful thoughts and thought patterns. The MDMA enabled emotional epiphany but didn't change the way he thinks, or teach him to think differently, so he's having to learn that part at regular speed. The dissonance between those two states internally must be weird as hell. I hope he's able to stay on his positive path.
posted by LooseFilter at 7:42 AM on June 16, 2023 [15 favorites]

What's interesting about Brendan's experience is that he says it deeply changed him emotionally, but that he still struggles with racist, hateful thoughts and thought patterns.

This caught my attention as well. I hope his meditative/contemplative practices include the response (which is to say, 'non-response') to these thoughts when they occur. It sounds like the answer is yes:

"But now I can recognise that those kinds of thought patterns are harming me more than anyone else."

He may struggle with them the rest of his life; what happens when they occur is the important bit. Good for him.
posted by jquinby at 8:46 AM on June 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

I know more than one couple who have fallen in love on Ecstasy, then followed through on that love and gotten married. Unfortunately, one of those couples fell out of love at some point and proceeded to have a brutal divorce (three daughters in the middle) that didn't just tank the family's lives for a period of time, it also dragged most of their friends with them, everybody compelled to take a side.

It Was Divisive.

I also know that much as I have truly deeply profoundly loved the Ecstasy experience more than a few times, I have learned to steer clear because I hate how I feel not the day after, but the day after the day after -- as my now serotonin bereft psyche pays its dues. Or as a friend put it, "You blast off Saturday night, you slow dive all through Sunday ... and you spend the rest of week thinking you're depressed but what you're really feeling is just the return of normal. And then just as you're feeling grounded again, it's Saturday again, time to blast off again."

All this said -- I'm not opposed to the stuff. In fact, I can absolutely see how it may be very effective toward breaking down divides between people ... if utilized sensibly. Because as with pretty much all consciousness altering substances I've encountered, there is yang to the yin. To imagine otherwise is another of those slow roads to hell ...
posted by philip-random at 9:36 AM on June 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

Brendan clearly has resources many white supremacists lack. He lives in a "luxury high-rise overlooking Lake Michigan," and was initially radicalized at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His travels as a leader and recruiter took him around the US and to Europe. Post-dose, he "hired a diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant to advise him, enrolled in therapy, began meditating, and started working his way through a list of educational books."

MDMA helped Brendan, but I think the identity reveal, immediate job termination, and shunning by family and friends who are not white supremacists/neo-Nazis laid crucial groundwork. He "grew up in an affluent Chicago suburb in an Irish Catholic family," and shame is a powerful motivator.

Brendan admits he's still bigoted. He was able to leave Identity Evropa/the American Identity Movement because he has more options (money).
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:37 AM on June 16, 2023 [3 favorites]

One of the sadder things about becoming an old is you gradually lose access to mdma and the like. Eventually, you have no idea where to find anything, and nothing screams “narc” like an old sniffing around for a little recreational fun/help.

Despite people calling me "sir" like I'm some kind of authority figure, I'm also regularly offered drugs. It's weird. Well, I guess it's not really weird to me that people would offer me drugs, more that they call me sir despite having hair down to my ass, a beard that makes me look like some long lost member of ZZ Top, and clothes that scream "I stopped giving a fuck so long ago that I don't even remember what a fuck is."
posted by wierdo at 10:41 AM on June 16, 2023 [5 favorites]

"I stopped giving a fuck so long ago that I don't even remember what a fuck is."

Definitely adding that to the lexicon.
posted by LooseFilter at 11:50 AM on June 16, 2023 [7 favorites]

Or should I say
posted by LooseFilter at 12:01 PM on June 16, 2023

I have learned to steer clear because I hate how I feel not the day after, but the day after the day after -- as my now serotonin bereft psyche pays its dues.

I have done Ecstasy a few times, but not yet MDMA. I heard that this^ experience is common for MDMA. I have not had the depressive feelings with Ecstasy. Mostly the next few days I feel really sore from 6-7 hours of straight dancing and the jaw clenching, omg the jaw clenching is really the worst and it takes days to go away. Have not necessarily felt depressed though I am interested to finally try some MDMA and feel the difference
posted by LizBoBiz at 4:19 PM on June 16, 2023

I'm entirely curious what chemical you're ingesting as "ecstasy" as that was the street name for MDMA "back in the day".
posted by hippybear at 4:41 PM on June 16, 2023 [14 favorites]

I feel like the outcome here is a variant of the phenomenon in which the US political map is almost fractal ... at almost any level of zoom, the densely populated places are blue while rural areas are red. The closer you come into contact and understand and care about other lives, the less bigoted you are. This guy realized by way of a drug that he actually can care about other humans, and voila, bigotry vaporizes.

Time for some crop dusting
posted by Dashy at 4:59 PM on June 16, 2023 [4 favorites]

Now we have to find a way to put it into the drinking water.
posted by DJZouke at 5:09 AM on June 17, 2023

Ecstasy (or todays ecstasy) contains speed too. Pure MDMA is Molly I believe. But there is a difference
posted by LizBoBiz at 10:36 AM on June 17, 2023

Today's ecstasy. Not that of the 90s -- ot at least not as much back then.
posted by y2karl at 10:46 AM on June 17, 2023

Neonamber's advice above was well taken.
posted by y2karl at 10:52 AM on June 17, 2023

Molly vs ecstasy is more about physical form than chemical composition. Both are supposed to be MDMA, though the illicit drug trade being what it is, neither is likely to be anything even close to pure.
posted by flabdablet at 12:35 PM on June 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

and for what it's worth, the first time I did Ecstasy (late 1980s sometime), I immediately thought, oh, this is just MDA (aka The Love Drug) except now it's got lots of hype behind it and they've triple/quadrupled the price.

Bottom line, if you're not buying it from a pharmacist, do you really know what you're getting? Certainly, the best Ecstasy I've ever had was indistinguishable from the best MDA.
posted by philip-random at 2:12 PM on June 17, 2023

So my personal experience in the UK was that up to ≈ mid 2000s ecstasy was pretty widely understood to equate to MDMA. This was by far most commonly in the form of "pills" which might be weaker or stronger, speedier or mongier or trippier but which could (despite rare tragedies and cultural alarmism to the contrary) generally be depended on to contain at least a get-past-threshold dose of MDMA (or MDA or MDEA), sometimes cut with caffeine / amphetamine sulphate (meth was extremely rare in the UK back then).

There was a much more rarified and hard to source market in MDMA crystal, which was a lot more expensive and visually very identifiably a different product from "regular" powdered drugs like amphetamine, ketamine and cocaine.

My understanding from a since-then cold-turkeyed distance of the scene is that from the late 2000s onwards the somewhat growing supply / much more rapidly growing desirability and reputation of this crystal MDMA was picked up on by suppliers and dealers, this being around when the "molly" label (I think more US side) started to be used to market supposedly high quality MDMA / ecstasy in powder / capsule (vs. stamped pill) form.

Unfortunately this coincided not long after with 1. a quite prolonged period of disruption of the previously very well established Dutch MDMA supply chain and 2. a very rapid uptick in the availability and use as cutting agents of synthetic cathinones, first mephedrone (which mirrors some of the effects of MDMA though in a generally nastier manner) and then a whole range of other novel and little tested chemicals of this class.

So as far as I can decrypt it, the ecstasy vs. MDMA / molly labelling used now is a result of something of a golden era of abundant supply and pretty high quality giving way to a much tighter market, one where fragmentation of terminology very much suited the suppliers as the "product range" could become perceived as split across several tiers, the lower of which were a great dumping ground for dubious MDMA alternatives and the higher of which provided a great profit margin for doling out a much slimmer slice of the good stuff.
posted by protorp at 2:20 PM on June 17, 2023 [3 favorites]

philip-random, MDMA (which your late 80s ecstasy was extremely likely to have been) has MDA as one of its primary metabolites... the two chemicals effectively constitute different accents of the same experience.
posted by protorp at 2:25 PM on June 17, 2023

2004's Is ecstasy MDMA? A review of the proportion of ecstasy tablets containing MDMA, their dosage levels, and the changing perceptions of purity. Study results: During the 1980s and early 1990s there were few problems with the purity of ecstasy tablets, and the biochemical evidence shows that they nearly always contained MDMA. During the mid-1990s, the majority of ecstasy tablets continued to contain MDMA, while many others comprised MDA (3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine), MDEA (3,4-methylenedioxyethylamphetamine), or amphetamine drug mixtures. However, a small proportion (4–20% according to survey, time and place), comprised non-amphetamine drugs such as caffeine, ephedrine, ketamine, paracetamol, or placebo. During the late 1990s, the proportion of ecstasy tablets containing MDMA increased to around 80–90%. The latest reports suggest that non-MDMA tablets are now very infrequent, with purity levels between 90% and 100%. Dosage levels of tablets are also highly variable, with low dose tablet often encountered during the mid-1990s, and high dose tablets now seen more frequently.

2021's Shifts in Unintentional Exposure to Drugs Among People Who Use Ecstasy in the Electronic Dance Music Scene, 2016-2019. Results: MDMA detection was stable at 72-74%. We detected decreases in unreported use of methamphetamine (from 22.2% to 5.6% [P = .003], an 74.8% decrease), new psychoactive substances (from 31.1% to 2.8% [P < .001], a 91.0% decrease), and synthetic cathinones in particular (from 27.8% to 2.8% (P < .001, an 89.9% decrease). Unreported ketamine exposure increased from 18.9% to 34.7% (P = .022, an 83.6% increase). We also detected decreases in participants' suspicion of their ecstasy being adulterated with methamphetamine (from 20.0% to 5.6% [P = .010], an 72.0% decrease) and "bath salts" (synthetic cathinones, from 8.9% to 1.4% [P = .044], an 84.3% decrease). [...] This was among the first studies to examine unintentional exposure to drugs over time in this population and unintentional exposure to synthetic cathinones in particular appears to be declining.
posted by Iris Gambol at 4:08 PM on June 17, 2023 [5 favorites]

I think the difference between MDA and MDMA as far as distribution goes is that MDMA is maybe cheaper to produce, breaks down to MDA in the body, and so if you're taking the thing you're really taking the other thing with your body doing the final chemical breakdown.
posted by hippybear at 7:36 AM on June 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

I used to work in harm reduction-based drug counseling education, so I may be able to clarify a few things here.

- "Ecstasy" is the street name for a club drug, usually sold in a pressed pill, that contains MDMA as its main ingredient, but often contains a small amount of other amphetamines and other drugs.

- "Molly" is the street name for MDMA. However, outside of pharmaceutical settings, all drugs should be assumed to have cross-contaminants of some form.

- There is a myth that "Molly is pure, and ecstasy is cut", but that's incorrect, per the above. "Molly" refers to MDMA, but outside a pharmaceutical setting, any substance labeled as "molly" is likely to contain detectable amounts of methamphetamine, amphetamine ("speed"), and sometimes other drugs. According to anecdotal data from official testing centers (some countries have legal, professional testing services).

- MDMA is the short name for 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine. Note the end of that - it's a methamphetamine, though not the same drug that people usually refer to as "meth" (they're related chemically and in effect, but not identical).

- MDA is a metabolite of MDMA. That is, if you ingest MDMA, some amount of it will break down into MDA in your body before being excreted.

- MDA and MDMA have subjectively different effects, although they're similar

- In general, methamphetamines cross the blood-brain barrier more readily than amphetamines, so they will have a greater effect on the brain and less peripheral effect, but this is not a hard and fast rule.

- Aside from the dose size and means of ingestion, the mindset and setting in which one ingests a drug has a massive and underrated effect on the subjective effects of the drug. This is particularly important for psychedelic-assisted therapy (I would count this story as an example of psychedelic-assisted therapy), because it's easy to control the dose, but it's very difficult to control the mindset that a patient has when taking the drug. This is one of the reasons that experiences with psychedelic-assisted therapy vary so widely.
posted by Mavertan at 2:01 PM on June 19, 2023 [5 favorites]