A bit of a digression, but possibly a useful one for anybody wondering if amphetamines or other drugs might be an easy panacea for depression. The answer may we

A bit of a digression, but possibly a useful one for anybody wondering if amphetamines or other drugs might be an easy panacea for depression. The answer may well be "yes, and then very much no." I had my first (and so far only) ecstasy pill a year or so ago, and it was wonderful - lit my brain on fire, caused me to experience the best music festival I've ever been to, and gave me the kind of intense connection with my friends I'd been missing from years of crippling depression. The following week was hell, and caused slight but permanent damage to my family relationships. It took a couple more weeks to recover to even my low standard of 'normal'. It was only later that I learned that ecstasy, amphetamines, LSD, and basically anything that acts on the seratonin system can cause severe depression lasting a week or more - and if you've already got depression, that can get really bad. It's worth being careful with these things. On the other hand - a similar experiment a couple of months later with a small dose of synthetic psilocybin yielded a week of the best mood I've been in for years, with no obvious side effects. I'd love to see more research on these things. I'm probably not going to do much more research on it using my own brain ;)