[criticaltinker]

Listen, your comments on all these threads make it clear you’re seriously pessimistic about psychedelic medicine, and that’s perfectly ok.

What bothers me is the incessant pushing of this agenda:

> anyone ending up in a psychedelic research study is doing so because they think psychedelics are promising for mental health and they want to try it out

> maybe the real reason psychedelics show efficacy in depression is that they are a sort of super-placebo

This amounts to uninformed armchair dismissal that is inconsistent with a growing body of scientific evidence, and easily refuted by a cursory survey of recent literature and clinical trial results.

Surely you’re familiar with double blind randomized placebo controlled studies? I’ve linked you to recent ones in other comments.

These methods aren’t perfect and your concerns certainly have merit in general - I just don’t understand why you continue to make these broad and suggestive claims without any supporting evidence.

[tsimionescu]

I am curious: is it actually possible, even in principle, to have a blind placebo controlled psychedelics study?

How can you not be aware of whether you have consumed a psychedelic substance or a sugar pill, assuming we are not discussing something like micro-dosing?

[criticaltinker]

It’s a valid concern and many folks have raised it here on threads concerning this topic.

The short answer is yes: beyond mannitol, niacin, and even bespoke substances designed to mimic the organoleptic properties of ayahuasca have been used effectively as placebos.

At modest dosages (above the threshold of perception but within the therapeutic window) the side effects can be surprisingly similar in the general population, and thus difficult to distinguish for the average joe.

Of course studies vary widely in quality and rigor, so one must critique experimental design on a case by case basis.

[dennisgorelik]

> I’ve linked you to recent ones in other comments.

I could not find any "placebo"-related links in your last 3 months of comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=criticaltinker

Why didn't you include an actual link into your comment instead of referring to your unspecified past comment?