While it's certainly very true that there are people who just want to ruin everyone else's fun out of spite, this situation is more complicated because there re

While it's certainly very true that there are people who just want to ruin everyone else's fun out of spite, this situation is more complicated because there really are problems with uncontrolled administration of drugs, even ones we have studied for other purposes. There a many reasons why people in the article are stressing the need for trials. Even if we just stick to ketamine, there are many questions. First, is this better than the current standard of care? Is it better in the short term, long term, or both? How much better? Should we discontinue drugs like SSRIs altogether? Are people dying (committing suicide, in this case) because this is a fringe treatment and not the standard of care? Second, while we clearly already use it as an anesthetic, we don't know what the effects or dangers might be for this kind of use. Is repeated administration (as seems necessary) a health problem? Are side effects like hallucinations just temporary, or is the brain altered in some way permanently? There are drugs that, the longer and more frequently you take them, the more likely you are to have actual permanent problems (some antipsychotics, for example). Doing any kind of controlled study with humans is inherently difficult, and in some cases impossible (this is why we know so little about nutrition). But not doing controlled studies and carefully assessing the value of a treatment can be just as catastrophic as ignoring something that seems to work. And you can't go with your gut on these things, or we end up with antivaxers and dead people when we should have just done the study(s) the right way from the start.