ArcticDagger

Angående sportsdelen: Anders Nedergaard har et spændende afsnit med Ask Vest Christiansen, lektor ved Aarhus Universitet, hvor de netop snakker om transkvinder i idræt

https://pca.st/episode/48d50c72-babc-4f63-97d7-e98ce6602f7b

That's an interesting point. But maybe there are some compounds that can induce a state that fools people who've never tried psychoactive compounds? I've heard of studies using dehydrated water as a placebo for alcohol as it induces some of the same effects:

Like ethanol, heavy water temporarily changes the relative density of cupula relative to the endolymph in the vestibular organ, causing positional nystagmus, illusions of bodily rotations, dizziness, and nausea. However, the direction of nystagmus is in the opposite direction of ethanol, since it is denser than water, not lighter.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water

To a certain extent I agree, but I also think it's a tricky topic that deals a fair bit with the ethics of medicine. The Atlantic has a pretty good article with arguments for and against: https://web.archive.org/web/20230201192052/https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/12/the-placebo-debate-is-it-unethical-to-prescribe-them-to-patients/250161/

Yes, in your three situations, I'd agree that option C is the best one. But you're disregarding a major component of any drug: side effects. Presumably ecstasy has some nonnegligible side effects so just looking at the improvement on the treated disease might now show the full picture

I agree that it's a shame that it's so difficult to eliminate the placebo effect from psychoactive drugs. There's probably alternative ways of teasing out the effect, if any, from MDMA therapy, but human studies take a long time and, consequently, costs a lot of money. I'd imagine the researchers would love to do the studies, but doesn't have the resources for it

I think the critique about conflicts of interest seems a bit misguided. It's not the scientists who doesn't want to move further with this. It's the FDA

But if they know they're getting ecstasy, the improvement might originate from placebo which means that they're not actually getting better from ecstasy. They're just getting better because they think they should be getting better

Jeg er ikke så stærk på makroøkonomiske forhold, men måske det er for at sprede udgiften ud for begge parter. Det kan også være man vurdere, at familien selv bedst ved, hvor man skal lægge de ekstra penge i stedet for at det er staten, der skal vurdere det på et samfundsplan. Det er jo ikke kun udgifter til institutioner, der fylder noget hos en børnefamilie og derfor vil en større pose penge til institutioner ikke gavne alle

Ja, det lyder det til uden at jeg selv er økonomisk vismand. Men et lån med 0 rente kan give fin mening, hvis der er høj inflation

That's a super cool link. Thanks for sharing!

Det må man håbe!

I think those are all good questions that I don't think anyone really have conclusive answers to (yet). Hopefully the researchers will have the funds in the future to investigate those and more!

Yes, det tror jeg bestemt, at du har ret i. Jeg ved med sikkerhed, at ulovlige stoffer er irriterende at benytte som kemiker. De koster voldsomt meget ekstra at købe. Du kan f.eks. købe heroin fra Sigma-Aldrich - kun 224kr for 1 mg! Men så er det også 98% rent. Og så er der en masse papirarbejde når man køber det og hver gang man skal anvende det. Jeg mener endda, at der skal være mindst to til stede, så den ene kan bevidne, at den anden kun tager den mængde de skal bruge (er lidt usikker på dette).

Min pointe om catch-22 er nok ikke helt korrekt givet, at MDMA er godkendt til medicinsk brug. Jeg tror dog stadig det er besværligt at bedrive forskning med det selvom det i praksis er lovligt

Men det lyder til, at der også klart er en inerti indenfor feltet. Information ser ud til at have en spændende artikel fra 2022 som jeg endnu kun har skimmet: https://www.information.dk/moti/2022/12/ecstasy-molly-ptsd-medicin-historien-the-love-drug-maaske-kan-hele-psykiske-saar

Som én, der ikke har direkte kontakt med psykiatrien, men bevæger sig i forskningens verden, så tror jeg også "bare", det er fordi menneskets hjerne er sygt kompleks og mega svær at kurere. Jeg misunder ikke dem, der forsker i psykiatriske præparater, men jeg er taknemmelig for, at de gider!