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Comment by theptip | Hacker News Reader

A recent SSC post [1] made some interesting observations on why it might be that there are no "traditional" psychopharmacological discoveries that have anywhere near as strong and immediate effects as MDMA and ketamine.

In summary, most clinically developed chemicals are looking for small effects with small side-effects. MDMA definitely does not have a "small effect" in the therapeutic dose range (typically 100-150mg).

[1] http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/06/05/is-pharma-research-wors...

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Yes, but on the other hand -- recently I've had a relatively persistent flu and decided to visit a doctor. After ~10 minutes I've been prescribed Levofloxacin antibiotic (w/o even doing blood work). I've bought the antibiotic and even got some probiotics; back at home, I've decided to do basic overview and research what I'm about to administer, as (luckily) I've never been treated before w/ drugs of such group. As it turns out -- this medicine do have frightening side effects, which may occur months even years after the initial 5-day administration. The side effects are potentially life long and may cause various disabilities. There are clinical studies which do provide very strong evidences about these side effects; numerous class actions against given pharmaceutical companies and blogs, where people are writing about the hell they are going through.

I'm in EU, but FDA warns about these potential issues and recommend prescribing fluoroquinolones as last line of treatment.

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

Honestly, I don't buy this argument about the numerous side-effects preventing further reasearch of psychedelics.

Psylocibin/MDMA should be available for research and even as last line of treatment, I believe, thousands of people will benefit.

That's a valid observation, but I'm inclined to think that doctors prescribe lots of drugs because the FDA standards are so high (arguably too high). If you essentially have zero liability for prescribing drugs because they have all been shown to be safe, then there's no reason not to.

But the bottleneck isn't what doctors are willing to prescribe, it's what drug companies are willing/able to get through FDA approval, which is a bit different.

(To be clear, I'm in full support of further research into these chemicals; just interested in all of the reasons that they are not as well researched.)

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