5 ms·

If your attempted argument is "X helps people who are not helped by other existing treatments", then limiting your selection criteria to those who have tried se

If your attempted argument is "X helps people who are not helped by other existing treatments", then limiting your selection criteria to those who have tried several existing treatments and not found success seems to follow logically. (Though the study's construction seems to fail at that argument, since the claim is that all patients, both those given the psilocybin and those given the SSRI, improved markedly.)

varispeed 6y ago
When I wrote that, I had in mind a situation in my country that you can be eligible for private medical cannabis prescription if you try at least two other treatments and you find them ineffective. On the surface it doesn't sound too sinister, but for example, when it comes to chronic pain the drugs that are being given are simply nasty. I still have nightmares about the side effects that I experienced (vivid hallucinations, suicidal thoughts, derealization and more). Given how ubiquitous cannabis is, people with various problems often find, including chronic pain, that it helps massively and unfortunately they cannot bypass going through hell just to get prescription for what helps. They cannot even suggest that they look for medicinal cannabis as they still may be branded as drug seekers and be denied treatment altogether.
- rincebrain 6y ago
  I can understand the basis for those requirements in general (e.g. for antidepressants, doctors generally won't start you with an MAOI or a TCA, they'll start you with an SSRI or SNRI or similar, then try another one if that doesn't work, then maybe resort to TCAs if a couple of those don't work, then maybe try an MAOI if a couple of _those_ don't work), though I would agree that having a hard requirement of trying several other drugs first with the toxicity profile of cannabis seems...overly harsh at best. (Especially labeling people drug seekers for it - though they might be gun-shy after the fun with opioids and worried about finding a new epidemic of cannabis addicts, which seems...unlikely.)

varispeed 6y ago

When I wrote that, I had in mind a situation in my country that you can be eligible for private medical cannabis prescription if you try at least two other treatments and you find them ineffective. On the surface it doesn't sound too sinister, but for example, when it comes to chronic pain the drugs that are being given are simply nasty. I still have nightmares about the side effects that I experienced (vivid hallucinations, suicidal thoughts, derealization and more). Given how ubiquitous cannabis is, people with various problems often find, including chronic pain, that it helps massively and unfortunately they cannot bypass going through hell just to get prescription for what helps. They cannot even suggest that they look for medicinal cannabis as they still may be branded as drug seekers and be denied treatment altogether.

rincebrain 6y ago
I can understand the basis for those requirements in general (e.g. for antidepressants, doctors generally won't start you with an MAOI or a TCA, they'll start you with an SSRI or SNRI or similar, then try another one if that doesn't work, then maybe resort to TCAs if a couple of those don't work, then maybe try an MAOI if a couple of _those_ don't work), though I would agree that having a hard requirement of trying several other drugs first with the toxicity profile of cannabis seems...overly harsh at best. (Especially labeling people drug seekers for it - though they might be gun-shy after the fun with opioids and worried about finding a new epidemic of cannabis addicts, which seems...unlikely.)