this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2024
155 points (94.8% liked)

News

22838 readers
3766 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Bought is it.

Mental health meds are a huge industry. MDMA has the potential to help cure what other medication can only treat.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Nah, that's not the issue (nor do I believe in magic bullets, but that's a different matter). See, the issue is that MDMA can't be patented. Anyone can make it so no one pharmacorp can have a 20 year monopoly

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I said potential to help cure. I think MDMA assisted psychotherapy, in particular, has the potential to cure PTSD in a lot of people. Not everyone. But a lot.

And the patent issue on this has been solved by starting a non-profit pharmaceutical company and getting grants and donations to fund these trials. And then patenting the treatment protocols under a public trust corp I believe. I follow MAPS quite a bit, the non-profit that spear headed a lot of this.

I think what the other poster said about the FDA approving drugs with more cardiovascular issues than MDMA is true and points towards corporate bias in the panel (which most of us probably know is true).

Treating mental health with SSRIs etc. is a big business. Some of that panel probably stands to lose money if some of those repeat customers find a cure.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You sound like you'd be interested in David Healy's work. Check out Children of the Cure if you haven't already. That, as well as a plethora of other shady things I learned in university, are responsible for reorienting me toward public policy rather than becoming a practicing psychologist.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

I found a TED talk with him I'm listening now. Thanks for the lead I hadn't heard of him before.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Usually first to market work generics enjoys a year of exclusivity. Usually other companies abandon our back burnera project they don't make to market first. There's still money to be made. Just not as much.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

I think you don't quite understand the comment.

Current pharmaceuticals are usually a (life)long prescription. It's not like antibiotics, where you get a dose for a few days or weeks and you're done. Antidepressants have to be taken for years. Every day. That means revenue every day. It's a treatment, not a cure.

MDMA on the other hand is a (potential) cure. You take it a few times under supervision and that's it.

Problem is, this takes away customers from the former group. And that means, far less revenue from "traditional" psychopharmacology products. MDMA cannibalizes other drugs.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Well, I guess it's not only that. Psychedelic drugs can really fuck you up, if you aren't prepared. People talk about set and setting a lot.

I suspect that these drugs sure help a lot of people, but can also fuck a lot of people up really badly. It's like, people who don't go along well with these substances, avoid them instinctively.

Now, if someone would prescribe them, I'm pretty sure that a lot of people who are simply not prepared for it mentally (instead blindly trust the medics), would take them and get hurt pretty badly because of that.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

That's why its better to take them under medical supervision(at least for the first time). Just giving them someone is probably the dumbest thing you could do.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

It's not just supervision IMO.

I prepared myself for years before I took psilocybin for the first time, because I knew that it's going to bring up all of the subconscious shit that I carried around. So I "cleaned" myself enough emotionally beforehand, before taking the fungus.

Now, imagine your typical asshole walks into your medical treatment facility and demands psilocybin. Sure, you can give them psilocybin, but you cannot give them the sense of respect and understanding in front of these drugs.

Edit: by "your typical asshole" i mean, the typical asshole that you would encounter daily. Not you personally or sth.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

That's why you shouldn't just give it out to the Normie's. It should only be taken with medical supervision.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

These drugs are typically used for individual and group therapy sessions and not given as prescriptions to take at home. They're basically just there to augment therapy sessions.

I do think they should be legalized and allowed for recreational use as well but your concerns aren't really justified if you look at what existing therapeutic applications are like and what companies in the psychedelic space are trying to do right now.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Yeah, I guess you have a point.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Don't use the word cure.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago

It does not have that potential. This should be downvoted to oblivion.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

There is no such thing as "curing" a mental disorder/disability. Although it could theoretically help speed up recovery from temporary bouts of depression or post-traumatic stress (which is often labelled "PTSD" when it's not), it cannot cure a lifelong disorder like depressive/mood disorders or PTSD & CPTSD. "Curing" a mental disorder would mean making you a completely different person, it's inseparable from the rest of your brain – especially something that leans more into the "neurodivergence" idea, like ADHD or ASD/Autism, which both have imperfect yet effective treatments (ASD less so than ADHD), but "curing" such a thing would be impossible.

The only solution that helps people with disabilities is to make treatment in the form of pharmaceuticals, counselling, and other methods widely available and accessible over the long term – not to look for a cure. Not to say that MDMA can't be used for that though, it definitely can, it'd just be misleading to call it a cure.