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by cupcake-unicorn
793 days ago
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Sure, but if that's what's going on, it should be researched further and taken seriously during prescribing. 100% guarantee that when psychedelics hit the market, doctors will fall prey to overstating the harms from studies like this while turning a blind eye to the wealth of evidence of greater likelihood of harms in prescriptions they churn out without blinking an eye. I'm not anti medication, and I'm not saying that there are cases where the benefit doesn't outweigh the harm, but I do think the potential harms of each medication should be thoroughly investigated equally. Large companies with the ability to withhold damaging trials, sway the public opinion, and have a giant PR team and legal team at their disposal shouldn't be impacting our understanding of the real risks and science. |
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Well I mean, it is, at least to some extent. The FDA has officially put a "black box" warning on antidepressants that they can increase the risk of suicide, especially in the young, and so have its counterpart agencies in several other countries. All doctors know about it – whether they all take that risk seriously enough is a matter of opinion, some are much more hesitant about prescribing them than others are. And it remains an active area of research.
> 100% guarantee that when psychedelics hit the market,
Here in Australia, they only let psychiatrists prescribe them (started in July last year for psilocybin and MDMA), and only for individually approved psychiatrists who have completed a training programme in psychedelic treatment. This is similar to our existing restrictions on prescribing psychostimulants–which most Australian states only permit psychiatrists and paediatricians to prescribe absent special approval–albeit even stricter. They'll likely relax the rules over time, but very unlikely non-psychiatrists will ever be legally allowed to prescribe them (outside of exceptional circumstances).
From what I understand, the approach in the US is different, as far as the DEA is concerned, theoretically, any doctor can get a DEA number which lets them prescribe any Schedule II/III/IV controlled substance. However, in practice, there are a number of drugs which very few US doctors would dare write a script for, even though by the letter of the law they are allowed to do it, because they don't want the "extra attention" the DEA will give them if they do – methamphetamine is a good example. (Technically, any Australian doctor can legally write a script for methamphetamine, but it is almost impossible to fill, because unlike the US, it isn't approved for sale in Australia–not because it is a controlled substance, rather because it lacks our equivalent of FDA-approval–the only way to actually fill the script would be to get a government permit to import it for an individual patient, and there is zero chance they'd approve such a permit unless the prescriber was a senior psychiatrist.)