8 ms·

For decades, there has been a near complete effective block on medical research for certain classes of drugs. Timothy Leary and that kind of 60’s stuff chilled

For decades, there has been a near complete effective block on medical research for certain classes of drugs. Timothy Leary and that kind of 60’s stuff chilled legitimate science. Only recently have small changes started to happen, to the point the government, the flipping FDA, has started to think Ectasy (MDMA) might be a viable treatment for some of our most horrible mental illnesses. So many people wonder when science will let us do things. When will we land on the moon, when will we cure cancer (most cancer anyway, a handful have been effectively cured), when will all of mankind benefit from the next great insights? We ask this yet in a lot of ways, we won’t even open our minds enough to give it our best shot. How much can x, mushrooms, ketamine et al really change devastated lives for the better under the right conditions? We may never know. I fully respect the opinion of people who say these drugs shouldn’t ever be used, or that disagree with me on any issue in general. But I will never respect someone who doesn’t want to know the answers and the data. It happens with drugs, gun control, so many political issues, people actually do not want, and even work against collection of, objective data. Of course of any given data set can be biased or flawed, and that has nothing to do with getting the best data you can, iterating, and improving it. If we are opposed to something, it’s ostensibly for a reason right? Why would we ever not want to strengthen our argument, or discard it, based on better understanding of our “reason”?

tome 9y ago
> For decades, there has been a near complete effective block on medical research for certain classes of drugs. In the US. One wonders why such a study wasn't carried out in a less puritan country.
- TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
  As a world power and leader of most democratic nations(at the time), sentiments and legislation started in America generally spread to most other nations under its influence.
  - cnp 9y ago
    This is quickly changing.
    - mistermann 9y ago
      China doesn't seem too keen on drugs either.
      - QAPereo 9y ago
        Too true, they’ve been trying to crack down on Ketamine, never mind that it’s medically critical as a field anesthetic!
- metalliqaz 9y ago
  It's because the real reason that testing these drugs is illegal isn't USA puritan values/laws. It's because they aren't patented. The synthetic opioids that drug companies are dumping on the population these days are many times more dangerous, but they make a profit for big companies, so they are legal. Powerful drug companies influence research worldwide. They want no competition from drugs that would be generic from day one. edit: missing words
  - PeterisP 9y ago
    This is a big issue. Clinical studies to get a chemical approved for therapeutical use are very expensive, and since most of the chemicals were first explored a long time ago, they can't be patented anymore, so no pharmaceutical company would fund the studies since they won't be able to be the sole provider of that drug (at a premium cost), and public funding for clinical studies is quite low.
    - metalliqaz 9y ago
      I guess that leaves academia?
      - PeterisP 9y ago
        No, it does not. "Academia" generally means studies funded by public grants (which, as I said above, very rarely would cover drug approval studies) and in some cases academia might implement studies funded by the pharmaceutical companies, but they're not really an independent source of funding for research, at least not in expensive/labor intensive fields like medicine. In fields where solid research can't be done by a single part-time person (e.g. a teaching professor), research happens only to the extent and in the direction where there's available funding. Even putting a couple grad students on a project for a year (i.e., a very small project) requires external funding, much less the extensive studies needed to prove that a particular chemical is safe for human use and has a therapeutic effect.
    - refurb 9y ago
      There is nothing stopping them from making a patentable analogue. Happens a lot right now.
- pizza 9y ago
  iirc the united nations ratified american drug laws in the 60s/70s
- refurb 9y ago
  Some of it has to do with the history of psychedelics. At least in the US, the 1960's were rife with "psychedelics cure everything!" and they were pretty broadly used in the psychiatrist community. What happened was that a lot of the promise of them didn't pan out. Then the laws changed and it made it much harder to do research. So in essence, it's not just one reason why psychedelic research pretty much disappeared. Unmet expectations, lack of funding and stringent laws all contributed to it.
  - beagle3 9y ago
    It pretty much is one reason. Neural networks also fell out of favor in the AI winter, for similar reasons, but people could still experiment (and did) so we now have an NN renaissance.
    - refurb 9y ago
      People could still experiment with schedule 1 drugs. Sure it's a lot of paperwork, but it can be done, in fact this MAPS study proves it!
wavefunction 9y ago
The sad thing is that the repressed authoritarians who want to control everyone and prohibit drug use would likely benefit greatly from some recreational psychotropic experiences under the right conditions. And society would be better off as well for their experience. Or maybe they're wound too tightly, I could be wildly optimistic.
- metalliqaz 9y ago
  You're confusing the public-facing values authoritarians claim to have vs what they actually believe. They use things like religion, scapegoats, and wars (on drugs, terrorism, communism, etc) to whip up support. But it's just a tool. Absolute power for themselves is all they believe in. Many of them are drug users, I'm sure.
  - wavefunction 9y ago
    >Many of them are drug users, I'm sure. I should have specified a psychedelic or empathogenic drug I guess. You're probably right that they're knee-deep in depressants and stimulants.
alexnewman 9y ago
https://www.alternet.org/drugs/cloak-dropper-twisted-history-cia-lsd https://www.alternet.org/drugs/cloak-dropper-twisted-history...
TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
On one hand, I understand that psychedelics should be more studied than they currently are. On the other hand, I understand why they were originally banned. In a country that valued a monoculture and having a single way of life, psychedelics spurred a complete revolution with regards to social and cultural norms. It was seen as destabilizing, and a threat to the American way of life. Nowadays, our country is very different. There is a widespread sense that there is no right or wrong way to live your life, and anyone who goes against multiculturalist viewpoints is labeled as ignorant or a racist. I think in this environment, the introspective, antiauthoritarian thought processes that psychedelic use brings about wouldn't have nearly the kind of social impact that they had in the 70's.
- corporateslave3 9y ago
  Was the threat to the traditional American way of life really the reason they were made illegal? It seems more likely that it was due to the unknown and possibly dangerous nature of the drugs. As a society we have always outlawed drugs that can drastically alter perception (aside from alcohol).
  - TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
    Well it was known as a powerful mind-altering substance in the 50's when it was released as a medication, yet was kept on the market because it was seen as a breakthrough with alcoholism, PTSD, and other mental health issues. It wasn't actually made illegal until the 70's when its use became widespread in the growing counterculture. That makes me believe that the counterculture had a large part of it being banned.
  - 09bjb 9y ago
    I don't think there's a firm consensus on the reasoning, but it's generally acknowledged that the Sch. 1 classification of the psychedelics was motivated to 1) quell their threat of cultural and political destabilization and 2) to keep hippies and blacks in check. The 60s were similar to Occupy Wall Street: there's major (valid) fear on the part of the establishment when a radically different movement picks up steam. Psychedelics were (rightly) considered a partial fuel to the new movement. I also agree that the U.S. is much less of a monoculture now and people generally agree that others should be able to live, think, and believe whatever and however they want.
BearGoesChirp 9y ago
>and even work against collection of, objective data The problem is that many times the data collected is not objective at all. Statistics can be twisted by even just the definitions of words used. For example, a CDC study on rape considered forced penetration, but not being forced to penetrate, as rape. This data was then used in a report that, among other conclusions, concluded that women almost never rape men. All the cases of women forcing a man to have sex were defined as not being rape, twisting the results of the study. When you see someone against data collection, are they against using good objective data, or do they have reason to believe the data won't be objective and manipulated to push one side or the other? All this being said, I think drugs like MDMA should be legal for recreational use, much less therapeutic use.
- WhitneyLand 9y ago
  >The problem is that many times the data collected is not objective at all I don’t think that has anything to do with it. If it were the case the demands would be for better data, not no data. And yes, some in Congress advocate against collecting data full stop on certain issues. I would agree it’s always been true thst data will sometimes be flawed and biased, and always will be. The question is what do you do about it? Stop science, or improve standards in good faith?
  - BearGoesChirp 9y ago
    It depends upon what the options are. If you can demand and get good data, then people will ask for good data. If they don't think it is possible to get good data, then they may demand no data because no data is better than bad data. For an extreme example, consider a country where homosexuality is punished by long prison sentences (or worse). Would you trust any data that such a government produced? If they produced data showing something negative about homosexuality, would you even spend the time to look at their methodologies? Or would it be dismissed as inherently biased as the source would be seen as being incapable of being trusted? For me it would be the latter.
zo1 9y ago
>"So many people wonder when science will let us do things. When will we land on the moon, when will we cure cancer (most cancer anyway, a handful have been effectively cured), when will all of mankind benefit from the next great insights? We ask this yet in a lot of ways, we won’t even open our minds enough to give it our best shot." I'm of the firm opinion that we'll always be slow to do those Big Things while we are dragged-down by the welfare/nanny state. So many lives and generations are subsidized into oblivion for a net societal loss.

tome 9y ago

> For decades, there has been a near complete effective block on medical research for certain classes of drugs. In the US. One wonders why such a study wasn't carried out in a less puritan country.

TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
As a world power and leader of most democratic nations(at the time), sentiments and legislation started in America generally spread to most other nations under its influence.
- cnp 9y ago
  This is quickly changing.
  - mistermann 9y ago
    China doesn't seem too keen on drugs either.
    - QAPereo 9y ago
      Too true, they’ve been trying to crack down on Ketamine, never mind that it’s medically critical as a field anesthetic!
metalliqaz 9y ago
It's because the real reason that testing these drugs is illegal isn't USA puritan values/laws. It's because they aren't patented. The synthetic opioids that drug companies are dumping on the population these days are many times more dangerous, but they make a profit for big companies, so they are legal. Powerful drug companies influence research worldwide. They want no competition from drugs that would be generic from day one. edit: missing words
- PeterisP 9y ago
  This is a big issue. Clinical studies to get a chemical approved for therapeutical use are very expensive, and since most of the chemicals were first explored a long time ago, they can't be patented anymore, so no pharmaceutical company would fund the studies since they won't be able to be the sole provider of that drug (at a premium cost), and public funding for clinical studies is quite low.
  - metalliqaz 9y ago
    I guess that leaves academia?
    - PeterisP 9y ago
      No, it does not. "Academia" generally means studies funded by public grants (which, as I said above, very rarely would cover drug approval studies) and in some cases academia might implement studies funded by the pharmaceutical companies, but they're not really an independent source of funding for research, at least not in expensive/labor intensive fields like medicine. In fields where solid research can't be done by a single part-time person (e.g. a teaching professor), research happens only to the extent and in the direction where there's available funding. Even putting a couple grad students on a project for a year (i.e., a very small project) requires external funding, much less the extensive studies needed to prove that a particular chemical is safe for human use and has a therapeutic effect.
  - refurb 9y ago
    There is nothing stopping them from making a patentable analogue. Happens a lot right now.
pizza 9y ago
iirc the united nations ratified american drug laws in the 60s/70s
refurb 9y ago
Some of it has to do with the history of psychedelics. At least in the US, the 1960's were rife with "psychedelics cure everything!" and they were pretty broadly used in the psychiatrist community. What happened was that a lot of the promise of them didn't pan out. Then the laws changed and it made it much harder to do research. So in essence, it's not just one reason why psychedelic research pretty much disappeared. Unmet expectations, lack of funding and stringent laws all contributed to it.
- beagle3 9y ago
  It pretty much is one reason. Neural networks also fell out of favor in the AI winter, for similar reasons, but people could still experiment (and did) so we now have an NN renaissance.
  - refurb 9y ago
    People could still experiment with schedule 1 drugs. Sure it's a lot of paperwork, but it can be done, in fact this MAPS study proves it!

wavefunction 9y ago

The sad thing is that the repressed authoritarians who want to control everyone and prohibit drug use would likely benefit greatly from some recreational psychotropic experiences under the right conditions. And society would be better off as well for their experience. Or maybe they're wound too tightly, I could be wildly optimistic.

metalliqaz 9y ago
You're confusing the public-facing values authoritarians claim to have vs what they actually believe. They use things like religion, scapegoats, and wars (on drugs, terrorism, communism, etc) to whip up support. But it's just a tool. Absolute power for themselves is all they believe in. Many of them are drug users, I'm sure.
- wavefunction 9y ago
  >Many of them are drug users, I'm sure. I should have specified a psychedelic or empathogenic drug I guess. You're probably right that they're knee-deep in depressants and stimulants.

alexnewman 9y ago

https://www.alternet.org/drugs/cloak-dropper-twisted-history-cia-lsd https://www.alternet.org/drugs/cloak-dropper-twisted-history...

TheAdamAndChe 9y ago

On one hand, I understand that psychedelics should be more studied than they currently are. On the other hand, I understand why they were originally banned. In a country that valued a monoculture and having a single way of life, psychedelics spurred a complete revolution with regards to social and cultural norms. It was seen as destabilizing, and a threat to the American way of life. Nowadays, our country is very different. There is a widespread sense that there is no right or wrong way to live your life, and anyone who goes against multiculturalist viewpoints is labeled as ignorant or a racist. I think in this environment, the introspective, antiauthoritarian thought processes that psychedelic use brings about wouldn't have nearly the kind of social impact that they had in the 70's.

corporateslave3 9y ago
Was the threat to the traditional American way of life really the reason they were made illegal? It seems more likely that it was due to the unknown and possibly dangerous nature of the drugs. As a society we have always outlawed drugs that can drastically alter perception (aside from alcohol).
- TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
  Well it was known as a powerful mind-altering substance in the 50's when it was released as a medication, yet was kept on the market because it was seen as a breakthrough with alcoholism, PTSD, and other mental health issues. It wasn't actually made illegal until the 70's when its use became widespread in the growing counterculture. That makes me believe that the counterculture had a large part of it being banned.
- 09bjb 9y ago
  I don't think there's a firm consensus on the reasoning, but it's generally acknowledged that the Sch. 1 classification of the psychedelics was motivated to 1) quell their threat of cultural and political destabilization and 2) to keep hippies and blacks in check. The 60s were similar to Occupy Wall Street: there's major (valid) fear on the part of the establishment when a radically different movement picks up steam. Psychedelics were (rightly) considered a partial fuel to the new movement. I also agree that the U.S. is much less of a monoculture now and people generally agree that others should be able to live, think, and believe whatever and however they want.

BearGoesChirp 9y ago

>and even work against collection of, objective data The problem is that many times the data collected is not objective at all. Statistics can be twisted by even just the definitions of words used. For example, a CDC study on rape considered forced penetration, but not being forced to penetrate, as rape. This data was then used in a report that, among other conclusions, concluded that women almost never rape men. All the cases of women forcing a man to have sex were defined as not being rape, twisting the results of the study. When you see someone against data collection, are they against using good objective data, or do they have reason to believe the data won't be objective and manipulated to push one side or the other? All this being said, I think drugs like MDMA should be legal for recreational use, much less therapeutic use.

WhitneyLand 9y ago
>The problem is that many times the data collected is not objective at all I don’t think that has anything to do with it. If it were the case the demands would be for better data, not no data. And yes, some in Congress advocate against collecting data full stop on certain issues. I would agree it’s always been true thst data will sometimes be flawed and biased, and always will be. The question is what do you do about it? Stop science, or improve standards in good faith?
- BearGoesChirp 9y ago
  It depends upon what the options are. If you can demand and get good data, then people will ask for good data. If they don't think it is possible to get good data, then they may demand no data because no data is better than bad data. For an extreme example, consider a country where homosexuality is punished by long prison sentences (or worse). Would you trust any data that such a government produced? If they produced data showing something negative about homosexuality, would you even spend the time to look at their methodologies? Or would it be dismissed as inherently biased as the source would be seen as being incapable of being trusted? For me it would be the latter.

zo1 9y ago

>"So many people wonder when science will let us do things. When will we land on the moon, when will we cure cancer (most cancer anyway, a handful have been effectively cured), when will all of mankind benefit from the next great insights? We ask this yet in a lot of ways, we won’t even open our minds enough to give it our best shot." I'm of the firm opinion that we'll always be slow to do those Big Things while we are dragged-down by the welfare/nanny state. So many lives and generations are subsidized into oblivion for a net societal loss.