Psychedelics

Ann Althouse carried the NYT story on the constant mucking up of the data by the researchers in trials of psychedelics. Too many of them can't keep their hands off the stuff for personal use and become advocates instead of objective researchers.

My first thought was "If this is that important to you, and you think this will be a great boon to all humanity, then why can't you put in the effort to do the studies right? Get people who are completely clean, completely objective, and put them out there to do the objective work.  Not the people who say that therapists should be strongly encouraged to have their own psychedelic experiences because it will help them understand their patients better.

Stoners were probably better at writing and playing stoner music when stoned.  The Grateful Dead, for example.  And maybe jazz musicians as well.  Trippers better at writing trippy music, drunks better at writing the various types of alcohol-fueled music. Maybe.  I'll accept the premise.  But I knew plenty of guys who insisted they were better guitarists stoned, but were demonstrably worse, they just had the subjective impression they were better. So you feel like you understand your patients better...does that mean anything? How did the patients rate that?  What were the results?

All very obvious.

But I put the question out to one of my email threads, and long-time friend of the blog Tim McMahan-King (King-McMahan?  I never remember) pointed out that the problem with MDMA might be that it works.  It does what it says it will, relaxing people's defenses so that they trust their therapist more quickly, suppressing the reticence and fears that nature has selected for for millions of years.  What could possibly go wrong there?  And there have been abuses, of  (his words)  

...a woman who had PTSD from sexual assault. She participated in a trial in Canada, was "healed" and then went on to spend the next several years speaking at conferences and to the press about how amazing MDMA and psychedelics are. During this time, she moved in with the therapist who had conducted her sessions and lived in a polyamorous relationship with him and his wife. It was only years after she suddenly realized how unhealthy everything was and that the therapist was taking advantage of her and had been manipulating her from their very first session. So, everyone 'trusted' each other and didn't see the danger and so it went unreported for years and she had been listed as a 'success' story.

It's this story.

I have mostly not opined about psychedelics much myself, but linked to people who know more about the subject and seem smarter than me. Aeon, ACX, and Tim previously. That latest (lattest?) is also interested in what we now call abusables being used by earlier cultures, including in the Bible. Not my topic, but some of you might be interested.