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"Placebo": how to properly use that term!

Jamshyd

Jamshyd

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I honestly have no idea where this fits, since it applies to all the drug forums... I guess maybe Drug FAQs? Anyways..

I notice an overwhelming number of people using the term "placebo" in several wrong contexts. So I thought I'd post a mini-guide on how to properly use the term. Criticism and/or suggestions are very welcome :)


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Um... isn't Placebo a band?

Yes it is, and although I wouldn't call them my favourite by any stretch, they're not too bad actually :).

So what are you talking about?

I am referring to the term "Placebo" as used in pharmacological and other scientific studies and anecdotes.

To put out a simple definition, the term "Placebo" refers to an imagined perception of a drug's effect when given a false stimulus (such as an empty or flour-filled capsule). The term is also frequently used to refer to the false-stimulus that produced the imagined effects, too.

A random piece of extra info: According to our beloved fastandbulbous, "Placebo is from the Latin, translating as "I will please". In pharmacological terms it translates as "I will please in the absence of an active agent" :)

How does that make sense?

When a drug is being studied, the study will often have a Control Group. This group of participants are not given the drug being studied but instead are given something inactive to make them believe that they have taken a drug.

Placebo is when people in the control group actually report having experienced some kind of effect after being given (what they believed was) the drug.

But I'm not participating in a clinical trial, how does that apply to me??

Well, the term "Placebo" is also used when people talk about their experiences with drugs or when writing Trip Reports. And it is here where I have found several wrong uses for the word placebo.

Here are some preliminaries.

1. If your experience was placebo, you would not know that it was placebo!!. Placebo is only determined either by the person who made the false "drug", or in retrospect by the person who took it if they are informed that it was false later.

2. Such an experience most frequently arises when someone is ripped off in a drug deal, such as being sold licorice as hash (this actually happened to me).

3. Placebo most certainly does not refer to a weak or subtle effect. I notice MANY people describing weak effects as "placebo" in their trip reports. Placebo can actually be a full-blown trip. The term is not interchangeable with the words "weak" or "subtle"!

4. Oh, and did I mention that if an experience is placebo, you're not suppose to know it was so?

To give an example:

- Anna-Belle takes 5mg of DiPT. She feels some sub-threshold effects that last for about 5 hours, but it never gets to a real trip. So she writes in her trip report: "For 5 hours, I felt a little intoxicated, but I couldn't figure out what exactly was going on. I saw almost no visuals... maybe a couple of tracers + trailers. I dunno if I was getting mild threshold effects or if the observed activity could be attributed to placebo effects."

NO! This was in fact a sub-threshold effect from the DiPT. It was NOT Placebo!


- Johnson is sold "Pure Krystal Shards, d00d!". So poor Johnson, excited to try meth for the first time, breaks a bit off ans smokes it. He feels, like, spun and stuff. And he had a lot of energy and felt great all day. Man, was this krystal shit good!

What poor Johnson didn't know was that his pure meth was in fact sugar crystals. But to in Johnson's mind, he tried meth, and it was great.

THAT is pacebo.

Hope this makes things just a bit clearer! :)
 
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ok ok so if a girl who speaks latin says 'placebo' get onboard for you will get real pleasure :)

We know this technical definition of placebo effect, but imo it can be extended a bit from being simply when no active agent is dosed and an effect is reported. For example if a patient is given an active agent and an effect far beyond that dosage is reported then there is a 'placeboic' (is that a word?) effect not identical to the control placebo group in a medical trial.

What about if someone is told they will recieve a placebo/inactive pill and it is actually an active drug, and they report no effect from the pill eventhough an effect would be expected from the pill? That to me would be an almost analogous phenomena to placebo.

The way I see it is that placebo infers a psychological influence over effects of a substance rather than simply the physical effects it actually has. This is why the term seems to be thrown around more often because people are referring to the mental phenomena, which is still present, not only does it show it's head in medical trials.
 
I am referring to the term "Placebo" as used in pharmacological and other scientific studies and anecdotes.

To put out a simple definition, the term "Placebo" refers to an imagined perception of a drug's effect when given a false stimulus (such as an empty or flour-filled capsule).
Click to expand...

I believe that the scientific use of the word placebo actually refers to the action of giving something inactive and saying it is. Not the event of thinking you felt the effects of the drug but only imagined them.

So the placebo in academia is the action of giving one, not the feeling of one. I believe the feeling of the placebo is used more in the lay world, where you were sold fake drugs but thought you got high. Or in the medical profession when you ask for painkillers and the doctor gives you saline. You feel better because you wanted to.
 
>>- Anna-Belle takes 5mg of DiPT. She feels some sub-threshold effects that last for about 5 hours, but it never gets to a real trip. So she writes in her trip report: "For 5 hours, I felt a little intoxicated, but I couldn't figure out what exactly was going on. I saw almost no visuals... maybe a couple of tracers + trailers. I guess it must have been Placebo."

NO! This was in fact a sub-threshold effect from the DiPT. It was NOT Placebo!
>>

I don't think that I've seen "placebo" used like this before. More often, I'd see something like your description, but detailing milder effects, and then the last sentence would be, "I dunno if I was getting mild threshold effects or if the observed activity could be attributed to placebo effects."

ebola
 
LOL @ FnB.

Been: Thanks for pointing that out - I have added it to my definition. However, I have seen the word used in reference to both the false-drug and its effects. You are right though, it is more often used to describe the false-drug.

Ebola: Thanks for pointing that out too. I have edited it appropriately :).
 
McWally: you are right, however keep in mind that the main point is that if the person knows that an effect is placebo, then by definition it no longer is.

That being said, Placebo is not limited to drugs/pharmacology, but can refer to any kind of fake stimulus or imagined effects.
 
"THAT is pacebo."

I'd like a good pacebo. It seems, according to the descriptive example, give fullblown meth-effects from crystalized sugar. All the fun, none the hurt. Splendid invention, source or synth please?

No, really, it's a typo. Just wanted to point it out. :)
 
LOL @ FnB.
Click to expand...

I was making a serious post! Bah, looks like I'm doomed to have my replies viewed as the rantings of the court jester/village idiot (however informed they may be). My own fault really, I shouldn't post as much when I'm stoned and can see the comic potential in just about every situation - it's almost certainly my take on a coping mechanism for stress etc, y'know,"you have to laugh or else you'd cry". That seems to be a theme running through an awful lot of my attitude to life (I have an inkling that it's somehow linked to my manic-depression) =D.

Could be worse though - I'd hate to be a human version of Marvin the paranoid android from H2G2! =D
 
^ Happy birthday FnB!

(assuming you're telling the system the truth- good reasons not to, I admit)
 
What about when I take Mushrooms/Acid/Any drug really, and begin to feel the effects before the drug could have possibly come on. For example, I had an amazing weed milkshake yesterday, drank it sober, but within 5 minutes I was saying I think I feel it already, then this died down, and 1 hour later I was ACTUALLY high. Is this Placebo, or what would you refer to this as? Sounds like Placebo to me...

I understand your point of using placebo less loosely and more in the way the scientific community refers to it as, but I think the above is a case of placebo; an illustration of our habitual nature, cause and effect, and what not.
 
I'm not sure this belongs in ADD. Most of the people here already understand what placebo means. This information needs to be posted up where the noobs etc. can see it and be educated.
 
Of course, I would suggest that a bit of something like placebo is inherent to all drug effect, even when there IS an active agent.
 
grue said:
Of course, I would suggest that a bit of something like placebo is inherent to all drug effect, even when there IS an active agent.
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There might be "something like placebo", but most certainly NOT placebo, since that defeats the whole purpose of this word. The term was coined specifically to describe an experience for which the stimulus was deliberately faked.

ps., I agree this thead doesn't belong in ADD, although as has happened, it gained some good input here. If I may request, perhaps it can be moved after a while to either drug FAQs or TR (the two most appropriate places IMO).
 
I thought this was an ADD thread, but it turned out to be a placebo, which in BL-ese means "F&B & Jammy are pulling your chain again to see who's paying attention."

And I could swear that this is F&B's third birthday this month...
 
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