if you can give opiates to people with cancer or severe injuries, why not give drugs like cocaine or psilocybin to alleviate mental illness?
>>16937512Opiates are good for pain management. Cocaine is still used as a fast-acting local anesthetic for niche applications.Psilocybin had been studied for things like depression with promising results but the evidence thus far hasn't been declared sufficient for regulatory approval.
>>16937539Microdosing psychedelics is even more stupid than doing SSRIs. They say it's a more "natural" way to do it, even though SSRIs functionally produce more endogenous ligands than the spooky foreign ones directly stimulating the receptor and downregulating everything. Serotonergic downregulation might be the only thing making a difference at all, but idiots associate more or less serotonin with more or less depression as if dirty serotonin doesn't exist (or, get this: as if life issues don't exist). The only indication that seems to makes sense for microdosing psychedelics is if there are psychological traits associated with excess serotonin, which might make it a better option than antipsychotics for depression at that point.
>>16937576In the 10 seconds I spent googling to verify my post wasn't bullshit before hitting "post" the studies appeared to be single dose. So the benefit would be that it's not a long-term regimen (if it actually works). With depression, the most critical symptom being targeted is anhedonia. Real life issues are, well, real issues. But if your mental state is making you lose all motivation to the point where getting out of bed feels like a herculean task, then those problems are only gonna get worse.
>>16937578I was not talking about single-dose use.
>>16937580I'm aware. But the studies I was vaguely alluding to (and did not read) appaer to be which is the point.
