In this episode, award-winning freelance journalist, Rachel Nuwer, discusses her fantastic and revelatory new book, I Feel Love: MDMA and the Quest for Connection in a Fractured World. Featuring the real life stories of many intriguing characters, from ravers to PTSD sufferers, Nuwer's book covers a lot of ground: from how MDMA (aka Ectasy or "Molly") accidentally came to be (in a German lab for pharmaceutical company, Merck), to its use by the US government as a potential 'truth serum' circa the 1950s (spoiler: this never took off), and subsequently by prominent biochemists and pharmacologists as a (legal) treatment for trauma and addiction in the mid-1970s. I Feel Love is at times maddening and disheartening, but also captivating, enlightening and an overall pleasurable read - in the similar vein of Dr. Gabor Maté and Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, who also explore the concept of 'best practice' for those who are suffering trauma. A must-read for those seeking a compassionate journey.
Rachel Nuwer is an award-winning freelance journalist who reports about science, travel, food and adventure for the New York Times, National Geographic, Scientific American and more. Her multi-award winning first book, Poached: Inside the Dark World of Wildlife Trafficking, was published in 2018 with Da Capo Press. Her second book, I Feel Love: MDMA and the Quest for Connection in a Fractured World, was published in June 2023 with Bloomsbury.