Psychedelics as psychological medicine?

This is not really new, after all a host of religions across the globe use some such drugs in various ways with special success in tackling alcoholism and existential anxiety in general. Also independent researchers such as the "father of LSD" Albert Hofmann have for long defended their usefulness in psychotherapy.

But still it's good to see that the same line of thought keeps reappearing once and again in spite of the institutional demonization of psychedelics. As reported by News Daily today, Franz Vollenweider and Michael Kometer, argue that drugs such as LSD or Psylocibes (magic mushrooms) have a lot of potential in psychotherapy, with the additional advantage that they would be used only for short periods, at low doses in combination with psychotherapy.

Psychedelics can give patients a new perspective -- particularly when things like suppressed memories come up -- and then they can work with that experience.

Mental illnesses...

... are serious, debilitating, life-shortening illnesses, and as the currently available treatments have high failure rates, psychedelics might offer alternative treatment strategies that could improve the well-being of patients and the associated economic burden on patients and society.

But Big Pharma surely prefers to have them taking their mostly useless (and potentially harmful) products for life, regardless of outcome.

Antidpressants increase mortality

If depressed, your chances of survival are best without pharma.

Of course, depression as such increases your chances of death but most commonly used drugs do too and none of them reduces the mortality rate.

Oswaldo P. Almeida et al. Depression, Antidepressant Use and Mortality in Later Life: The Health in Men Study. PLoS ONE 2010. Open access.

Fig. 3. The mortality hazard ratio associated with the use tricyclic antidepressants (▴), selective serotonin inhibitors (SSRIs)(▪), other antidepressants (x) and all antidepressants combined (⧫) is shown in the figure.

Of course, this says nothing about their effectivity in making you happy but the same can be said of heroine, right?

Cannabis is a medicine

Interesting review these days at Science News on the status of cannabis as actual medicine, not just to alleviate symptoms, which is in itself a medical use, but also to cure a range of illnesses from post-traumatic disorder to even cancer.

Take a look.

Also interesting some of the comments. For example, Will protests that the interest of pharmaceutical companies are hindering legalizing the plant because they would rather make profit from its components, which they have patented.

Of interest as well is the alternatives mentioned to the usual smoking. Eating pills is probably a poor alternative because one cannot control the unavoidable high, but sprays, essential oils and even relays to heat the plant without burning it, delivering similar amounts of its essences, are mentioned.

Additional resources: Erowid.

Danish pharmaceutical giant retrieves insulin drug from Greece

Throwing salt on the Greek injury, Danish pharmaceutic corporation Novo Nordisk has retrieved a key insulin drug from the Greek market after the government decreed that all medicine prices had to be cut by 25% (source).

It is the right and the duty of any government to guarantee as much as possible the the health and well being of its citizens, particularly those with special needs, in this case diabetics. Hence I understand that the Greek government and the European Commission (as EU government, even if unelected) have the right and the duty to guarantee that this medicine is delivered to European citizens in Greek as in Denmark, be it by grade or force, with or without the trademark and with or without the agreement of that stupid WTO mass-scam ring. No copyright, trademark, patent or whatever fancy pretext can justify the manslaughter of people by denying them readily available medicines.

Mr. Barroso: as President of the Government of the European Union, you have the duty to secure that these medicines are delivered to diabetic citizens at a reasonable price.

Antidepressants useless

Ref.: BBC: Antidepressants 'of little use'

After decades being a supposed panacea for every sort of low emotional states, a research team of the University of Hull (UK) has found what many suspected anyhow: antidepressants are useless.

The research, focused on drugs like Prozac, Efexor and Seroxat, that keep serotonin for longer in the blood, on the grounds that this bodily chemical is claimed to stabilize mood, found only an unclear small effect in the most severe cases of depression and absolutely no effect in all others.

This implies that depressed people can improve without chemical treatments, as declared lead researcher Prof. Irving Kirsch.

The study highlights that the current system of reporting drug trials is a failure: pharmaceutical companies (one of the biggest business of our time) only publish the studies that favor their products. Prof. Kirsch suggested that they should be obligued by law to publish all their data, even the one that is disfavorable.

The issue of psychodrugs is particularly susceptible to manipulation and, in my opinion, probably most drugs of this kind right now in the market are problematic. While depressed people are not inhabilited and may have the choice to avoid such drugs, assuming they have all th information and are not pressed by doctors and couselors, people with severe disorders like schizophrenics are submitted to true mental strait-jacketing by the forced administration of drugs of little or no benefit. I have known too many who have taken their lives off after the psychiatric machinery and their brainwashed (and often quite problematic) families cornered them in such a cul-de-sac.

But the problem with pharmaceutic companies goes well beyond that: antibioitics are still being prescribed against the flu, when everybody (specially doctors) know that they are totally useless. Overall drugs, including useful ones, are used much more than they should and that's because there's a whole system of comercial propaganda working for the final customer: you whenerver you may have any health problem, ends up paying for it.

Meanwhile all these companies get huge benefits, part of which will be used to create more biased research in favor of some new dubious product to sell in the wealthy parts of the world, while they obviously don't spend at all in research for the many diseases that affect the tropical belt, because they are poor and hence unprofitable.