> Even from an external, symptomatic view, there's a difference between a recreational "high" from a drug and someone successfully treated for depression with t

> Even from an external, symptomatic view, there's a difference between a recreational "high" from a drug and someone successfully treated for depression with the same drug. To take this position you cannot have spent much time listening to drug addicts, who explain their behavior in just this way. > The fact that the observation of that difference precedes understanding of the underlying mechanism responsible for it doesn't make the difference any less real. On the contrary -- knowledge of the underlying mechanism is what separates science from quackery. Remember that all quack cures appear to work, for unknown reasons, mostly having to do with the Placebo effect. Remember also that the study under discussion relied on self-reporting for its conclusions.