Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a major issue in this country, and over 800,000 veterans get disability checks because of it at an estimated taxpayer cost of $17 billion. That’s why it’s so huge that a surprising groundbreaking cure has potentially been found.

Believe it or not, MDMA is being recognized as a new cure for emotional trauma, and a Pennsylvania clinic may become one of the first legally-sanctioned facilities for using the psychoactive drug on treatment-resistant PTSD in the United States. The Landing medical facility, which is set to open in Wyndmoore next month, is set to specialize in using several psychoactive drugs to treat a variety of mental health disorders. It has specifically been pushing to receive FDA approval on using MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for patients whose Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder has been untreatable.

Though MDMA has been illegal since 1985 because of it’s use as a party drug, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) officially granted the substance a “breakthrough therapy” designation in 2017 after several studies proved its surprising success in treating PTSD. This designation was approved after the nonprofit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) published the results of six phase-2 clinical trials of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy.

The studies looked at 107 participants with chronic, treatment-resistant PTSD and gave them several treatments over the course of a month. Two months later, 56% of the patients no longer showed symptoms that qualified as PTSD, and one year later, 68% “no longer had PTSD.”

These findings are particularly important because experts have not been able to find any new drug treatments for PTSD in 17 years.

“[It] was astonishing,” said Sue Sisley, physician and president of the Scottsdale Research Institute. “Even with the best pharmaceutical regimen, you rarely ever see patients go into remission.”

Other studies that support this include researchers at Johns Hopkins University finding that MDMA triggers a neural response called a “critical period” during which the brain is sensitive to learning the reward value of social behaviors. This means that patients can use this critical period to revisit traumatic events in a clinical setting so that they can form positive associations with negative memories.

Find out more in the video below.