Editorial: Preface and Overview Second International MDMA ‘Ecstasy’ Conference in Australasia: Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

Abstract

The Second International MDMA conference in Australasia was held at Monash University in Melbourne on July 18th-19th 2010.Research from over twenty universities was presented, in a program which included both oral papers and posters.The first Australasian MDMA conference was held earlier at the Brain Sciences Institute, Swinburne University, also in Melbourne.All attendees were active MDMA researchers, with the main aims of the conference to facilitate lively debate and creative discussion amongst fellow experts.Similar to the famous CIBA Foundation seminars first held in London more than 60 years ago, this Australasian meeting was modelled on previous MDMA symposia held at the Novartis Foundation in London (formerly CIBA Foundation) during 1998 and 2004.The papers from the two London meetings have been published as special MDMA issues, the first in Neuropsychobiology [1-4, and others], the second in the Journal of Psychopharmacology [5-7 and others].The first Australian MDMA meeting has also been published as a special Neuropsychobiology issue [8-13 and others].It is therefore with pleasure that we are able to publish the proceedings of this most recent conference as a special MDMA issue for the Open Addiction Journal.We would like to thank the Editor, Professor Joris Verster for his support, and welcome the journal's open access policy.The Instructions for Authors outlined the requirements for the extended abstract format, with submissions of up to 500 words, including one simple figure/table and a maximum of 10 references.This format provides more extensive information than does the regular abstract format, while still allowing authors to separately publish their work as full journal articles.The abstracts were reviewed by Jillian Broadbear and Andy Parrott in their role as guest editors.Finally, we would also like to thank the Faculty of Medicine at Monash University for their generous financial support, which minimised costs associated with attendance and enabled a number of international, interstate and younger researchers to attend.