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Most drug trials are 30-90 days. I haven't seen a study that tracked drug vs. placebo over years/decades.
In only 30-90 days, drug withdrawal can cause placebos to seem worse, if a patient switches from drug to placebo during the experiment.
The truth is that we need lots of well designed clinical trials to decide if psychedelics are helpful or not. It's really difficult to decide on efficacy of drugs. For example, we still aren't certain how much salt is bad for you, who knows if LSD and other drugs that react in mindblowingly complex ways in the brain can be good or bad. We can only get somewhere with this by being as scientific as we can and refining…
the article is about psychiatric drugs, not psychedelics.
This article is unhelpful, typical of the BMJ. There are so many different classes and types of psychiatric drugs that even attempting to make sweeping comments like this (one way or the other) are ludicrous.
> A cohort study of patients older than 65 who were their own control found that all cause mortality was 3.6% higher when patients were taking the newer antidepressants for one year than when they did not take antidepressants.
This is a well known effect where depressed people previously didn't have the energy to follow through with suicides. Some antidepressants increase energy much sooner than they improve mood and so you have a depressed person who now has the energy to follow through with suicide.
Edit: I just realized this article presents both sides of the argument. This just seems like super clickbait for a hot button issue.
hmm Well considering heroine use has doubled in the passed 5 years, and doubled from 2012-2013, and that three-quarters of all heroine users now started out by getting addicted to their prescribed pharmaceutical equivalent, due to the delay in the administration cracking down on the pharmaceutical pill farms who incentivized the healthcare system to hand these out like candy with anyone who used the word "pain, back…
Heroin (and prescribed opioids) are not psychiatric drugs, so while yes they are a big problem, they're not really relevant to whether psychiatric drugs are positive or negative.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Heroin (and prescribed opioids) are not psychiatric drugs, so while yes they are a big problem, they're not really relevant to whether psychiatric drugs are positive or negative.
It definitely is relevant because psychiatric drugs are how people get onto heroin.
What's very common is people getting prescribed painkillers (oxycodone, etc.) and then moving onto heroin, because they are similar drugs. But those painkillers are not psychiatric drugs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Heroin (and prescribed opioids) are not psychiatric drugs, so while yes they are a big problem, they're not really relevant to whether psychiatric drugs are positive or negative.
It definitely is relevant because psychiatric drugs are how people get onto heroin.
Maybe. There were several I tried that were horrible and only one I liked. Most drug trials are 30-90 days. I haven't seen a study that tracked drug vs. placebo over years/decades. In only 30-90 days, drug withdrawal can cause placebos to seem worse, if a patient switches from drug to placebo during the experiment.
Is this specific to psychiatric drugs? I write software for a company that facilitates patient report outcome/clinical outcome assessment trials for the pharmaceutical industry, and we have trials that run for years. I don't believe our products have been used in a psychiatric drug trial, though.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Heroin (and prescribed opioids) are not psychiatric drugs, so while yes they are a big problem, they're not really relevant to whether psychiatric drugs are positive or negative.
It definitely is relevant because psychiatric drugs are how people get onto heroin.
Even then, I vehemently disagree with you, but I at least can follow the logic.
Arguing that clozapine, diazepam, fluoxetine, etc., are gateway drugs for heroine is an argument I've never heard before. It sounds ridiculous to me, but if you have evidence to support the claim, please post.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Heroin (and prescribed opioids) are not psychiatric drugs, so while yes they are a big problem, they're not really relevant to whether psychiatric drugs are positive or negative.
It definitely is relevant because psychiatric drugs are how people get onto heroin.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It definitely is relevant because psychiatric drugs are how people get onto heroin.
Are you misreading psychiatric as psychedelic ? Even then, I vehemently disagree with you, but I at least can follow the logic. Arguing that clozapine, diazepam, fluoxetine, etc., are gateway drugs for heroine is an argument I've never heard before. It sounds ridiculous to me, but if you have evidence to support the claim, please post.
But on your point, personally I think abuse of benzodiazepines is more likely to lead to a drug like Heroin than psychedelics are. The whole concept of "gateway drugs" hasn't been proven, but the effect of benzos is a lot closer to heroin than psychedelics (anyone who has actually tried heroin might correct me on this...), so would imagine a stronger cross-over (even if not due to a gateway effect, simply down to the fact that anyone who likes downers is likely to try other downers).