"I really don't understand the interest for psychedelic analogs."
Many people are still afraid of psychedelics... that includes both the people who've never tried them and don't know much about them, and those that tried them and maybe had bad trips.
There's also something to be said for being able to go about your normal day without having a full-blown psychedelic trip, or even any psychedelic effects to distract you from what you have to do that day.
It's also a lot easier to get approval for non-psychedelic drugs which more closely fit the profiles of other non-scheduled prescription drugs. There's a lot less political opposition to them too, and studies in to them are a lot easier to find funding for, etc...
people should be a lot more scared of psychedelics analogs that were only tested on rats(and that might one day make the poor souls exploited during the clinical trials insane...or dead)
it shouldn't be about what's easy, or about the image of a drug.
You don't try using a more dangerous drug because it have a better public image, that's insanity, or cupidity, but not science
also the trip is a big part of what makes them interesting for mental health
it's not just about hormone releases or brain chemistry changes, it's also about life changing experiences and realizations that wouldn't happen if you weren't tripping balls for a few hours
so all this really seems like pointless extremely dangerous and opportunistic research just to get funding, not real science
"the trip is a big part of what makes them interesting for mental health it's not just about hormone releases or brain chemistry changes, it's also about life changing experiences and realizations that wouldn't happen if you weren't tripping balls for a few hours"
Well, this is an open question.
A lot of people in the psychedelic community feel the psychedelic effects are necessary to get therapeutic effects, but it just hasn't been proven yet scientifically.
In fact, since non-psychedelic medications exist for treating depression, for example -- they're called antidepressants -- one could argue that there already exists proof that you don't need psychedelic effects to get therapeutic effects. It's just that antidepressants don't seem to be as effective for some people.
So the search for non-psychedelic alternatives continues.
I'm not sure. For example on a few occasions I fell asleep after taking MDMA or LSD(it's rare I know), well when I woke up I didn't feel any better, I just felt tired and dehydrated, whereas 99% of the time I feel AMAZING mentally the day after tripping(and I done lsd about 50 times, mdma about 15-20 times)
On LSD I would often spend hours writing a ton of stuff and have in-depth thoughts about my life and everything that went wrong with it, also I would laugh a ton, and everything was 10x as pleasurable, it's really like a mini nice vacation/spiritual retreat for me, and of course that didn't happen if I slept on it, so basically no benefits if I was not actually tripping and conscious that I was tripping.
I think it's proven empirically.
"In fact, since non-psychedelic medications exist for treating depression,"
Yes except usually antidepressants may only work after at least 4 weeks, and if you stop them you're usually back to depression(if they even work...), and they're also just trying to make serotonin have stabler levels while psychedelics can make you change your whole point of view on life or help fix past trauma.
"don't seem to be as effective for some people." some people? I'd say most people, even after trying multiple antidepressants you're still not that likely to stop being depressed, there is a huge study reproducibility problem, probably caused by the billions of dollars that SSRIs generates.
So really not comparable to drugs that can potentially create paradigm shifts in your brain after one use.
I don't think we'll fix depression with regular drugs.
It'll either be psychedelics assisted psychotherapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation(80% effectiveness in a recent Stanford study), or brain implants.
And especially not with psychedelic analogs, we're just likely to destroy the lives of hundreds of people during clinical trials, messing with psychedelics analogs sounds like a terribly stupid/insane plan.
Many people are still afraid of psychedelics... that includes both the people who've never tried them and don't know much about them, and those that tried them and maybe had bad trips.
There's also something to be said for being able to go about your normal day without having a full-blown psychedelic trip, or even any psychedelic effects to distract you from what you have to do that day.
It's also a lot easier to get approval for non-psychedelic drugs which more closely fit the profiles of other non-scheduled prescription drugs. There's a lot less political opposition to them too, and studies in to them are a lot easier to find funding for, etc...