eileenbunny
Druish Princess
Controls for studies on psychedelics are notoriously tough to determine. Bromo-LSD seemed like a good one but many current studies use things like niacin or diphenhydramine. I think the MAPS study is using niacin. They are all bad, but the problem is that if you use another hallucinogenic substance, it might work the same. Until that study, nobody had considered the possibility that these substances could work without the hallucinogenic effects. Now they think that they might even for psychiatric purposes and that it's more about the 5HT2A and 5HT2B receptors than it is about the hallucinogenic effects. Obviously more research is needed there but it hasn't happened.I read most of this.
First of all, that seems like a terrible control for a study. But what do I know. I don't see a problem with it. Hell, they could have used cheddar cheese as a control and found that it works. If Rick didn't find cheddar cheese research interesting - well that's okay, right?
Also, illicit drugs used for medical purposes is a HUGE paradigm shift in this country. We have to first get people to understand they are safe. I mean, we think they are. But since its nearly impossible to fund huge RCT studies for Scheduled drugs - we simply don't have the data. And no scientist, clinician, or government agency is going to sign off on that stuff until we do. Assuming it really is safe, I would fully expect that in the next 20-30 years, people will just be able to do it for themselves. Hopefully less, but science and the data it requires moves very slowly - for a reason.
And while you think you may need to move around on a heroic dose, the scientific data says that what I described works. I suppose you can argue with that, but it seems foolish.
I have no problem with the fact that Rick didn't have interest in the BOL study, but that he decided that "oh well something else works for headache so we'll now exclude headache and pain from the discussion about psychedelics altogether" that has been a problem. Other things work for depression and ptsd too, it's just that they don't work well and we need more options. It's the same with headache. We shouldn't stigmatize one and stomp all over it while trying to get to the other, especially since headache diseases are recognized as the second most disabling condition in the world and one billion people live with them. One in three people in the US will experience chronic pain sometime in their life and we think that psychedelics might help a variety of chronic pain conditions. It just seems careless. But Rick has worked hard to only advance treatment for mental health, and deliberately to the detriment of other conditions.
It's okay to say that psychedelics work to treat mental health conditions and push hard for their approvals, but it's not okay to say that ONE kind of therapy is the only way they are safe for anyone (a therapy that MAPS patented btw). And that therapy isn't the lying in a room with an eye mask on and listening to music therapy you describe either. MAPS's protocol is talk therapy while under the influence of MDMA. It also involves movement and other things. One trial participant was sexually assaulted during their psychedelic experience too. So there's that. But that's a whole other conversation, and we have to weigh it carefully. I don't think we should scrap a whole clinical trial due to this. It's too important. It is, however, a huge problem in that it isn't an isolated incident in the psychedelic movement and when we talk about harm reduction we don't just need to talk about how to keep someone from jumping out a window, but how to keep susceptible people safe from predatory therapists during their experiences.
I really do hope that MAPS's trial is successful and they get the nod from the FDA. It could help a lot of people. But I hope that it is done in a way that doesn't create barriers for others moving forward. That's a big concern for me.
I also have a problem with the fact that MAPS has been going around telling people this works before they have completed their clinical trials. If you are Eli Lilly or Pfizer or J&J and you did that, you'd automatically be disqualified from receiving FDA approval. It creates bias that is notoriously difficult to overcome in trial participants and clinicians alike. It's an ethical dilemma that I struggle with as someone who tells people to use psilocybin to treat cluster headaches without a clinical trial. But I'm watching people commit suicide at 10X the average rate due to this disease and if they have to pick an "unclinically proven treatment" or a bullet in the head, I think that the illegal drug is the way to go.
Yes, we need to shift public perception, but going around telling people this isn't safe if you don't have a rapey therapist around to help you through it isn't the way to change public perception for the better. Factual education is the way to go. We are of the DARE generation so we are the most resistant to this because someone spent years in school lying to us about the reality of drugs. They did it while giving people like the Sackler family a way to get richer while creating a whole generation of addicted kids. We need to be honest about our past with drugs and fix it, not build more lies for the benefit of capitalism.
