>> what you're about to see is the intersection of therapy and science and a journey to find the truth about mdma. >> this is "techknow". a show about innovations that can change lives. >> the science of fighting a wildfire. >> we're going to explore the intersection of hardware and humanity, but we're doing it in a unique way. this is a show about science... >> oh! >> oh my god! >> by scientists. >> tonight, "techknow" investigates "molly". >> hey guys, welcome to "techknow". i'm phil torres. "mdma", "molly", "x", call it what you want, this drug is offering some intriguing and even surprising potential in both the military institutional perspective and medical scientific. and that's why i'm joined by "techknow's" ex-cia operative, lindsay moran, and cara santa maria who can explain it from a neuroscience perspective. now, i've seen "molly" as a club drug but as a therapeutic drug? >> the military once used this as what they imagined could be a truth serum and now there's evidence that suggests that it could help ptsd sufferers. >> yeah and you know, scientists have long been intrigued by the sort of empathic benefits of mdma but now for the first time, there's an fda backed study so that they can see if these results are scientifically quantifiable. >> this serene treatment room nestled in the woods of south carolina... couldn't be further than the pulsing lights and booming music at this electronic music festival. at festivals and nightclubs the illegal drug "molly" or "ecstasy" is part of the culture. called "molly" or "x" on the street, mdma is really methylenedioxy-methamphetamine. it's a psychoactive drug first developed as a blood-clotting agent - later patented as a diet drug. when taken, mdma acts on the brain by causing the neurons to release more serotonin... this also causes the neurotransmitter dopamine as well as hormones like oxytocin to be released. all leading to a heightened feeling of trust and compassion. this is why mdma is often called an "empathogen". a hollywood club goer explains. >> i think people like taking mdma because it makes you feel euphoric, it makes you feel like your anxiety is released, feelings of happiness, and you can't talk about mdma without talking about love, and that's essentially why people take it. >> and maybe that's something i can take in the rest of my world, is to be around mom. >> and although this clinical setting is a world away... patient rachel hope just took the illegal drug, mdma. >> i was very anti-drugs, a teetotaler. i had seen what drug use had done to people in the 70s. i blamed a lot of the things that had happened to me on peoples' drug and alcohol abuse. >> rachel spoke with "techknow" from her new home in berlin, she's hopeful she's put her difficult past behind. rachel says as a child she was severely neglected and by age six she had been sexually abused. in the 90s, she was diagnosed with ptsd although back then she says they called her condition "acute anxiety". >> i spent up to 6 weeks at a time hospitalized or in clinics specializing in trauma. no matter what anyone did or gave me and how motivated i was - i was highly compliant, i finally told this therapist "i am doing everything you told me to do, i'm doing everything right - why am i getting worse"? i was hysterical and he said "because we have no cure for ptsd". >> still, for more than 16 years she tried conventional therapy. in 2005 rachel applied for and became part of a revolutionary study. she was one of twenty three patients to undergo mdma assisted therapy. she was initially a bit hesitant. >> i also believe, like most people, that this medication puts holes in your brain and it can't possibly do anything... but at least it was different. >> "techknow's" lindsay moran traveled to south carolina to meet with doctor micheal mithoefer the psychiatrist who led the mdma study. a a controversial as the drug is today, it wasn't initially viewed as an illegal street drug. >> research of psychedelic compounds in the 50s and early/mid 60s was really the cutting edge of psychiatric research. there was great excitement and enthusiasm about the range of effects of these drugs, how they might facilitate our understanding of the brain. unfortunately by the mid/late 60s it became associated with a politically active counter culture. >> recreational use of psychedelics was on the rise. so were overdoses and deaths associated with them. so doctor grob says that pressure against psychedelic research began to build. >> there was a great deal of cultural upheaval and by and large, primarily for political reasons, all research by the early 70s was repressed. >> for years, mdma had flown beneath government regulators' radar. in 1984, the dea began investigating whether it should be classified as a schedule 1 drug, meaning it has no medical use and high abuse potential. a year later under the controlled substances act mdma was added to the schedule 1 list. dr alicia danforth a psychologist and researcher who studies psychedelics explains the impact. >> research has been hindered because mdma was put on schedule 1, putting it in the most prohibitive class of controlled substances and a lot of research that could have taken place since it was scheduled in the mid 80s has been postponed. so, there are some things we know about mdma but there's a lot more to learn. >> by 1986 a growing number of psychedelic researchers had begun to lobby and even sue the federal government. the multi-disciplinary association of psychedelic studies, or "maps", was born. rick doblin, self proclaimed hippie turned advocate, researcher and fundraiser began his mission. >> it became apparent to me that the only way back into legal use of mdma would be through the fda to medicalize mdma through scientific research. >> launching maps into a 30 year struggle with federal regulators, thats resulted in small, but privately funded mdma studies across the world. coming up on techknow. >> it's kind of an orangish color. so it's possibly either methamphetamine or amphetamine. al jazeera america. >> it's friday night in hollywood... the dance clubs along hollywood boulevard are starting to fill up with partiers. "molly" is part of the scene. a team of volunteers from a non profit called "dance safe" has hit the streets too. as members of the harm reduction movement, they are on a mission that they think is very important. >> so you use this term "harm reduction", what does that really mean? >> well, "harm reduction" is acknowledging the fact that despite zero-tolerance drug policies, people are still going to use drugs... so the end goal is to keep people safe, alive and really prevent overdose and death. >> having attended hundreds of concerts across the country this summer, they know first hand, it's been a deadly festival season. in several states, high profile media reports of overdoses and deaths associated with drugs, often mistakenly called "molly" or "x", underline the importance of their work. >> this anonymous festival goer's experience is not unique among those who admit to taking "molly" or "x". independent private testing group erowid has collected data. by offering anonymous testing of samples, they've been able to track how often street pills sold as "ecstasy" or "molly" actually have mdma in them. of the almost 37 hundred samples submitted so far this year, they found just 27.5 percent were pure mdma. so dance safe volunteers are armed with information about the dangers of taking unknown substances. and they even carry self-testing drug kits. they will test anyone's drugs on site, for free. no questions asked. they let me try a kit for myself, using a sample of a white substance a volunter found lying on the ground at a rave. >> so the dance safe test kit is really simple to use. you're gonna wanna take a really tiny amount of the unknown substance and scrape it onto any white porcelain surface. now there are four reagents involved to help you really narrow down what your possible substance is. so one drop is all it takes. and the reaction will occur within 5 to 30 seconds max. it looks like it's kind of an orangish color. so it's possibly either methamphetamine or amphetamine. >> the problem with "molly" is significant, and not just in hollywood. cities across the us are seeing a rise in substances called "molly", or "x" on the street. in the last year, the dea has also seen a huge spike in synthetic drug impostors posing as "molly". techknow's lindsay moran has that part of the story. >> we're just outside washington dc-at the dea's special testing and research lab. this is where drug seizures and samples from all over the world are sent to be chemically identified. >> jill head is a supervising chemist at the lab. >> every drug exhibit that's submitted to the laboratory is approached as a complete unknown. we don't suspect that its anything until we conduct our analysis and make an actual identification. >> the lab tests thousands of drugs each year. >> she has two materials and they are both white powders, and so they are going to both be prepared in the same way. >> most are evidence collected during seizures. using the most advanced equipment in the world, it's still a challenge identifying the constantly changing chemical compositions found in synthetic impostors. >> and we've determined that it's methalone. >> do you ever test something and low and behold its pure mdma? or is it typically not? >> we do analyze and identify pure mdma. we do however also identify it and it's something completely different. >> but dea spokesman rusty payne is quick to debunk an mdma myth. >> some people have the perception that mdma, if it's pure, isn't dangerous. what's the reality? >> there's no such thing as a good batch of drugs vs. a bad batch of drugs. ask the parents of the dead kids. >> to a certain degree, leading mdma assisted therapist, michael mithoefer agrees. his samples are kept in a safe. he stresses mdma should always given to patients while they're under psychiatric supervision so their physical and mental states can be closely monitored. >> it's important to note, this is not take home medicine. people only receive mdma depending on the protocol, about 3 times, a month apart, under direct supervision. >> and while the dea is in charge of enforcing penalties against those who use mdma or ecstasy outside approved clinical research. the agency takes no official stance on it. >> our job is law enforcement. we leave the medical and scientific decisions to doctors and researchers and scientists. you don't want cops making decisions about what should be medicine and what shouldn't be medicine. >> you know, i gotta say this one really fascinates me because it's something that scientists have wanted to study for decades, but there is a taboo out there holding them back from it... and laws holding them back from this. >> completely and i think that this is a really important point to make, even though when you're under the influence of a drug like mdma you feel more open and more connected and really empathetic with the people around you, its a fleeting experience. in a therapeutic context though this can be used to the therapists advantage. it's not about pop a pill, you're gonna get better. its really kind of an assistive property to the therapy itself. and i think thats the important point to make, that with or without the mdma the therapy is going to happen, the mdma can potentially make it happen a little more quickly. >> maybe break down some of those barriers. >> exactly. >> i think its gonna be a long time before we see something like this as say the "go to" treatment for people suffering from combat trauma. i mean we've covered for techknow some other experimental treatments for ptsd like virtual reality and hyperbearic oxygen chamber treatment... i have to say it'll probably to be a while before the va is willing to delve into this kind of treatment just because of the conceptual taboo. >> well thank you guys for sharing both your personal experiences and what you saw during this piece. now mdma is certainly going to keep presenting a challenge for law enforcement and medical researchers so we're going to keep an eye on this story. thanks for watching techknow. we'll catch you next time. >> dive deep into these stories and go behind the scenes at aljazeera.com/techknow. follow our expert contributors on twitter, facebook, instagram, google+ and more. >> pushing the boundaries of science. >> we are on the tipping point. >> we can save species. >> it's the biggest question out there. >> it's a revolutionary approach. >> we are pushing the boundaries. >> techknow is going to blow your mind. >> our experts go inside the innovations, impacting you. >> this is the first time anybody's done this. >> i really feel my life changing. >> techknow, where technology meets humanity. only on al jazeera america. aacan >> there is no humanity here european police chiefs to meet hoping to avoid of repeat of scenes like these. welcome. i'm peter dobbie. a shaky truce struggles to hold in syria. we look at why latinos are registering to vote enmass. >> reporter: i'm in china where legislation has been 20ea