1) Let's not rush to dismiss the dissociative state as a mere "side effect" of ketamine. Recent research suggests that it is precisely this dissociative state that helps the user rise above the so-called "default mode network" in their brain, thus enabling them to see their problems in a new, more creative light.
Let's not let today's materialist bias in science bring us to rashly assume that the psychedelic aspect of the ketamine experience is something that we should try to dispense with. It may be the goose that lays the golden therapeutic eggs.
UPDATE February 23, 2022:
I am now using Ketamine nasal spray, and I can assure the critics that it is PRECISELY the disassociation that is THERAPEUTIC. It allows me a brief glorious escape from my eternally introspective mind -- it lets me see things outside of the limiting prism of my own otherwise troubled self-image. If Ketamine had no disassociative effects, it would be useless to me. With those effects, it is useful to me in two ways: first when actually used, of course-- second, it is useful as a mere presence: merely to know that this relief is "nearby" is a godsend for those with a negatively introspective mind. Not even using it, but knowing it is there, makes it easier to forge ahead.
2) The negative attitudes toward psychedelics that you reference are a mere artifact of the Drug War, during which the Drug Warrior has considered hyperbole and lies to be fair game in their fanatical efforts to denounce all illegal psychoactive substances. The Partnership for a Drug Free America 1 bamboozled a whole generation of Americans with their ad which featured an egg sizzling on a frying pan while the deep-throated voice-over warned the viewer that "This is your brain on drugs."
This was an outright lie when it comes to psychedelics. Far from frying your brain, drugs like psilocybin, ayahuasca, and even ketamine have been shown to grow new neural pathways, new neural connections, and even new neurons.
Ironically, the "frying pan ad" would make sense if its purpose were to warn us about Effexor 2 , a standard SSRI anti-depressant which has turned out to cause chemical dependency and anhedonia in long-term users. As a long-term user myself, I actually do have the feeling that Effexor is, slowly but surely, frying my brain. It's certainly not providing me with any creative insights into my condition here on planet earth, as psychedelics have been shown to do.
3) As for those in the survey who "wouldn't touch psychedelics," let's ask them again when they are considering psychedelic therapy as an alternative to committing suicide. Hopefully at that time, they won't be so bamboozled by our Drug War superstitions as to opt for the latter of those two choices.
4) Like most articles about treating depression, this one downplays the problems with the status quo. Commonly prescribed SSRIs such as Effexor create such a chemical dependence that users literally cannot kick the habit (according to a recent report by the NIH, which shows a relapse rate of 95% in those who attempt to "kick" Effexor after long-term use). It's amazing that I have to actually point out that this is a problem, so convinced are most Americans that the drug-war status quo is some kind of rationally considered baseline that we must accept without analysis.
Once America has a level playing field in which all drugs are legal, the doctor's goal will no longer be for a treatment to help a patient "get by" in life, but for a treatment will help them THRIVE.
As for Prozac, the question in the new age of psychedelic therapy will no longer be: does Prozac "work," but does Prozac help you "be all that you can be"? The answer, from my experience, is a definitive no. To the contrary, Prozac seems to help you be all that SOMEONE ELSE can be, by actually changing one's personality for the worse. Perhaps you've heard the story of the news reporter who was at first optimistic because Prozac made him happy, only to realize that it also made him shockingly unemotional at his own parent's funeral.
5) Finally, the price point for legal ketamine treatment is an outrage and points to a fundamental problem with the current healthcare system in America, if not the world. A depressed person of modest means might scrape together the 3,000 required for an initial two-week session of ketamine infusions, but only a depressed fat-cat will be able to afford the biweekly follow-ups of ketamine spray at $600 a pop. Meanwhile a street dose of the drug costs a mere $8.
Given that outrageous price disparity, can we really blame the depressed for violating our superstitious drug laws in order to access crucial treatment? It is not the safe route, of course, but it is the one that we are encouraging with our current Nixonian drug policies and their disastrous effects on drug availability and pricing.
Author's Follow-up: June 18, 2023
Keep in mind, reader, that Drug War lies can cut both ways. Any illegal substance is bound to be lied about through demonization. But any legal substance is bound to be lied about via self-interested corporate hype. The more I learn about the long-term effects of ketamine, the more I'm convinced that it would be one of the last substances to be legalized if we were judging substances fairly.
Of course, criminalization is the whole problem -- because mendacity is the handmaiden of prohibition. We need nothing more than total honesty about all substances -- based on a large and evergrowing database of actual real-life user reports such as those being amassed right now by Erowid. All I'm saying here is that, if criminalization DID make sense, then ketamine should be one of the very last substances to be legalized, if ever.
You can use morphine 3 , heroin 45 or opium 6 daily for your entire life and have perfect health -- yes, even improved health and fairly complete protection from common colds into the bargain. You can't use ketamine daily for more than half a year without encountering urinary problems. That's why the Drug War is so bogus: not just because it lies about illegal drugs to disparage them, but because it lies about legal drugs as well, in this case to make them fly off the shelves, so to speak. Drug warriors just can't bring themselves to tell simple unadorned truth about substances, whether their motivation is an unacknowledged belief in Christian Science or in an unbridled and amoral capitalism 7 .
That said, legalizing ketamine would be no problem whatsoever if Drug Warriors and their greedy capitalist alter egos would start telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about all psychoactive substances -- yes, including tobacco, alcohol and Big Pharma 89 antidepressants 10.
The Drug War is one big entrapment scheme for poor minorities. Prohibition creates an economy that hugely incentivizes drug dealing, and when the poor fall for the bait, the prohibitionists rush in to arrest them and remove them from the voting rolls.
We should place prohibitionists on trial for destroying inner cities.
How would we even KNOW that outlawed drugs have no positive uses? We first have to incorporate them in a sane, empathic and creative way to find that out, and the drug war makes such a sensible approach absolutely impossible.
Some fat cat should treat the entire Supreme Court to a vacation at San Jose del Pacifico in Mexico, where they can partake of the magic mushroom in a ceremony led by a Zapotec guide.
Do drug warriors realize that they are responsible for the deaths of young people on America's streets? Look in the mirror, folks. People were not dying en masse from opium overdoses when opiates were legal. It took your prohibition to accomplish that! Stop arresting, start teaching safe use!
Drug War propaganda is all about convincing us that we will never be able to use drugs wisely. But the drug warriors are not taking any chances: they're doing all they can to make that a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Daily opium use is no more outrageous than daily antidepressant use. In fact, it's less outrageous. It's a time-honored practice and can be stopped with a little effort and ingenuity, whereas it is almost impossible to get off some antidepressants because they alter brain chemistry.
Freud found that cocaine CURED most people's depression and he "got off it" without trouble.
It's already risky to engage in free and honest speech about drugs online: Colorado politicians tried to make it absolutely illegal in February 2024. The DRUG WAR IS ALL ABOUT DESTROYING DEMOCRACY THRU IGNORANT AND INTOLERANT FEARMONGERING.
The drug war is a meta-injustice. It does not just limit what you're allowed to think, it limits how and how much you are allowed to think.
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