The problem with "curing depression" as a whole is that it's a complex syndrome with multiple causes, and our understanding of the brain is very primitive at th

The problem with "curing depression" as a whole is that it's a complex syndrome with multiple causes, and our understanding of the brain is very primitive at this point. I kind of think that many recreational psychedelics are both over-hyped by advocates and over-demonized by naysayers. Recreational experiences are fine and dandy, but I haven't seen much evidence so far that serotonergics do anything for depression. MDMA for PTSD remains experimental (worth a study I'm sure though). One psychedelic is an exception: the observation that ketamine actually rapidly helped some depressed patients has sparked a whole lot of research in the last decade, has led many to question the whole monoamine hypothesis behind current depression treatment, and may lead to non-psychedelic treatments that work better (or at least on a different subset) than SSRIs. (http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21708655-new-generation-drugs-could-change-way-depression-treated-novel-drugs http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/2170865...). So, if you are a fan of the psychedelic experience and want to try something a bit out of the medical norms to alleviate depression, the ketamine clinic has the most medically backed potential at the moment, in my opinion (although I'll add that from what I understand ketamine clinic treatment is not at all similar to recreational usage as the dosage is much less). Alternatively, you could wait for the non-psychedelic versions or even rather unrelated derivatives (mentioned above) to progress, that for all we know might actually be better in the end. As the Economist article rightly alludes to, the brain is a seriously complex organism, and science has not reached a neat simple conclusion about depression yet.