I had no idea how to name this thread. The purpose of it is to reveal chemicals which aren't used or are only used in selective cultures/nations for various disorders but which aught to be re-evaluated for widespread use.
I'm convinced that chemicals within various plants/fungus might provide an overall better ability at treating chronic mental illnesses than the scientists of GSK or Shire. The problem from the patient's point of view with using most viable herbs to treat disorders is that the chemicals aren't purified, standardized, nor studied enough (though one could argue hundreds/thousands of years of human use provides more information than any number of clinical trials, we must use every technique we have to determine efficacy), so that one could be co-ingesting a chemical which is detrimental to their health (e.g. if someone is smoking weed to alleviate schizophrenia they're probably hurting themself).
Ok I'm not an anarchist lol. But people with mental illness go through so much pain, and they deserve to be prescribed the drug(s) which is/are most effective. The drugs I am about to list have, in my opinion, from a statistical point of view demonstrated scientific validity as medicines, yet aren't being pursued to the degree that they are useful.
Cannabidiol:
The first one that comes to mind is Cannabidiol (CBD): the second most prevalent psychoactive constituent of cannabis.
For anyone interested in psychopharmacology its a partial or full agonist at 5-HT1a (I don't know, but have a feeling its a 5-HT3/5-HT7 antagonist), a negative allosteric modulator at the mu and delta opiate receptor sites, an indirect cb1 antagonist, a cb2 agonist, an antagonist at the third cannabinoid receptor (GPR55), and an adenosine agonist at at least subtype 2.
The side effect profile is almost non-existent. It is, contrary to some literature out there (which is growing), psychoactive; so what? I don't have time to do all of your research for you, and have only done this much because I'm interested in helping people and think CBD is a poster-child of governmental neglect, so I would feel horrible not propagating its demonstrated benefits, which are preliminary, but which given the institutional hate against cannabis are in my opinion most likely a lot more than the 99% of studies which assert its usefulness suggest. But here are a few links expressing its wide potential for everything from ocd to depression to anxiety to schizophrenia. Oh yeah, and aggressive cancer.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1476-5381.2009.00521.x/full
http://www.nature.com/npp/journal/v36/n6/abs/npp20116a.html
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-011-2415-0
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096999610900309X
http://www.nature.com/tp/journal/v2/n3/abs/tp201215a.html
http://www.kindgreenbuds.com/medical-marijuana/cannabidiol-antipsychotic-drug.html
If one wants cannabidiol in most countries they will either have to break the law or pay out the ass. Why isn't this drug rapidly going through clinical trials? I'm not saying immediately give it to people, even though I don't think that would yield more negative consequences than not.
CBD isn't toxic in any rational sense of the word, has been used by people for thousands of years, has a negligible side-effect profile, though psychoactive has a very small potential for addiction, and demonstrates efficacy for disorders comparable to widely used medications without near the amount of danger/adverse effects. I can't think of any acute risks.
Psilocybin/Mescaline:
I will now speak on a few natural psychedelics, including psilocybin and mescaline. LSD, 2C-B, and whatever other synthetics with psychedelic properties should logically be assumed to be less safe than ones which have been integrated into human culture for as long as writing has been, if not for longer.
Psilocybin and Mescaline have more ethos and scientific studies behind them than they used to for treating a form of atypical depression, an affliction perhaps usually brought on by the relative inhumanity (or 'inanimility') of our lives. Of course the former is more studied than the latter, and has a much higher LD50 (it takes a lot more to overdose, though mescaline also induces vomiting, a safety catch a la ethanol), but has more potential to induce a bad trip.
Importantly, psychedelic substances present a very real danger: the 'bad trip', or mental hell (which I think is merely a total realization of the uselessness of consciousness, but that's my opinion) after which one may experience negative, enduring psychoactive effects after the drug has worn off. One cannot mess around with these substances. I'm not fucking kidding. I've gone through bad trips and psychotic depression as a result of psilocybin abuse, and I am still in recovery. Unfortunately, though even one psychedleic experience can cure a chronic, debilitating, decades-long mental illness while providing the most meaningful experience one has ever had, being mentally ill in general will make one more succeptible to having a bad trip. If a mentally ill person who wants to try psychedelic therapy doesn't talk to several of those who have done to the same, read up comprehensively on the effects, and isn't well prepared (in general doesn't understand or respect the unique nature of these chemicals), they are likely to experience an acute hell followed by an enduring one.
One might then wonder why even take the risk of psychedelic therapy if the outcome could be a dramatic worsening of ones condition, if not total ruin, in contrast to the remarkable psycho-physiological safety of cannabidiol. This is largely the ostensible institutional justification for not allowing psychedelic use, while many of us suspect another reason is that psychedelics so profoundly influence the mind that the stability of society is at risk in the minds of officials. If one takes too much of anything, there are negative consequences. That's it.
The truth is that bad trips are extremely rare. The risk of an adverse effect is simply much less than is socially perceived.
From my readings, I've come to the conclusion that we must take a middle ground, as Buddha taught, though I'm not Buddhist. People like Leary could ruin society; he never respected the consequences of psychedelics, and most likely compromised his health by taking it too often and at too high a dose. By the same token, if we are stagnant and prohibit freedom, society will ruin itself. The integration of new mindstates/cultures has always contributed to a more liberal, utilitarian society overall. I think governments and centers of learning are starting to realize this. This is getting off-topic though. Help the sick first.
Please read my scientifically rigorous paper on psilocybin for more information. As regards to mescaline, there is surprisingly little scientific information on it.
Both of these substances are internationally 100% illegal for human consumption, save various jurisdictions in which there is either very little law, the cultural significance of the substance outweighs (usually externally motivated) prohibitive legislation, or there are governmental exceptions for religious use.
My point on psychedelics isn't to be taken out of context. Clearly some offer a unique mechanism and course of action against severely debilitating mental illness. Why not have one more tool to combat our inherently self-destructive brains?
Cathinone:
A stimulating amine. Found in the Khat plant. Internationally, Schedule I. It has a very similar psychopharmacological profile to amphetamine, which for all intents and purposes was discovered in the 20th century; amphetamine is Schedule II. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1508843 The question is of course why we insist using a chemical which only really started to be used eighty years ago in place of one which has been around thousands, or at least why we don't test the clinical viability of each against the other. People in North Africa/The Middle East use khat in a similar way to how Westerners use coffee.
There is one cathinone though, bupropion (or budeprion or Welbutrin) which is widely clinically used and indicated for depression. It functions as mostly a norepinepherine re-uptake inhibitor, and is about as abusable as strong coffee. Bupropion is the only norepinepherine-dopamine re-uptake inhibitor on the market which is indicated for depression. Bupropion in my opinion is a very nasty chemical in that it acts as an antagonist at a sub-unit of the nicotinic acetylcholline receptor, leading to a decrease in cognition and pleasure. So I have to choose between my optimal intelligence and not being depressed? Dopaminergic medications are hardly ever used for depression. Why? People deserve more options.
That's not to say dopaminergics should be first-choice medicines. But its funny: health professionals tell us that its probably a deficiency in monoamines that cause depression, yet they'll only work to increase two of them in a direct manner!? Oh, but I can sacrifice my intelligence to be happy. No thanks. This is not to say everyone has had a similar experience on bupropion, but justifying psychopharmacologically and anecdotally, it has severe negative effects on cognition. This goes along well with it being touted as an effective bi-polar medication, which medications typically restrain the thought process.
Diethylpropion, a cathinone derivative, is only used as an anorectic, yet has an abuse liability much less than amphetamine, doesn't rape the nicotinic receptor, and is a clinically safe medicine. Most people don't know it exists.
Dopaminergics, or lack thereof:
The current failure of the pharmaceutical institution to vouch for directly dopaminergic drugs for depression is a major flaw in modern psychiatry. Forty years ago one could be prescribed amphetamine for depression without much of a problem. In fact, amphetamine was once considered the wonder drug, used for over thirty distinct mental illnesses. Someone today, one subject to the bias of media and government, would probably say its a horrible idea to give people amphetamine for depression, that the dose will have to be continually increased, and that the purported anti-depressant effect is merely a high, a band-aid which doesn't actively fix the brain. This is wrong, fear-mongering, similar to the irrational fear of a bad trip. Amphetamine has neurogenic effects on the brain just as SSRIs, a mood-effect which doesn't disappear on a stabilized dose, and is safe in therapuetic doses.
And I think this is starting to become institutionally apparent, if it already wasn't by many independently-minded doctors. Shire is currently conducting phase three trials of lisdexamphetamine as an adjunct to an SSRI for treatment-resistant depression. And stimulants are frequently used off-label in combination with other medicines for treatment-resistant depression, depending on your doctor's experience.
Beware: The justification for scant use of dopaminergics in patients with depression has literature behind it: if you abuse your medicine, you're fucked, and don't deserve to take it, just about regardless of how much you need it.
I've come to realize a few things about mental illness, things a famous psychiatrist with several decades of experience has affirmed: mental illness constantly morphs with time to not just become "worse" or "better", but to be more, or less, reminiscent of a particular disorder (there exists an infinite variety of combinations of symptoms from seemingly ; everyone has a unique disorder; even if someone is, say, bipolar (like me), stimulants could calm them (like me); one can experience a wide variety of effects from any medication.
More later...
I'm convinced that chemicals within various plants/fungus might provide an overall better ability at treating chronic mental illnesses than the scientists of GSK or Shire. The problem from the patient's point of view with using most viable herbs to treat disorders is that the chemicals aren't purified, standardized, nor studied enough (though one could argue hundreds/thousands of years of human use provides more information than any number of clinical trials, we must use every technique we have to determine efficacy), so that one could be co-ingesting a chemical which is detrimental to their health (e.g. if someone is smoking weed to alleviate schizophrenia they're probably hurting themself).
Ok I'm not an anarchist lol. But people with mental illness go through so much pain, and they deserve to be prescribed the drug(s) which is/are most effective. The drugs I am about to list have, in my opinion, from a statistical point of view demonstrated scientific validity as medicines, yet aren't being pursued to the degree that they are useful.
Cannabidiol:
The first one that comes to mind is Cannabidiol (CBD): the second most prevalent psychoactive constituent of cannabis.
For anyone interested in psychopharmacology its a partial or full agonist at 5-HT1a (I don't know, but have a feeling its a 5-HT3/5-HT7 antagonist), a negative allosteric modulator at the mu and delta opiate receptor sites, an indirect cb1 antagonist, a cb2 agonist, an antagonist at the third cannabinoid receptor (GPR55), and an adenosine agonist at at least subtype 2.
The side effect profile is almost non-existent. It is, contrary to some literature out there (which is growing), psychoactive; so what? I don't have time to do all of your research for you, and have only done this much because I'm interested in helping people and think CBD is a poster-child of governmental neglect, so I would feel horrible not propagating its demonstrated benefits, which are preliminary, but which given the institutional hate against cannabis are in my opinion most likely a lot more than the 99% of studies which assert its usefulness suggest. But here are a few links expressing its wide potential for everything from ocd to depression to anxiety to schizophrenia. Oh yeah, and aggressive cancer.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1476-5381.2009.00521.x/full
http://www.nature.com/npp/journal/v36/n6/abs/npp20116a.html
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-011-2415-0
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096999610900309X
http://www.nature.com/tp/journal/v2/n3/abs/tp201215a.html
http://www.kindgreenbuds.com/medical-marijuana/cannabidiol-antipsychotic-drug.html
If one wants cannabidiol in most countries they will either have to break the law or pay out the ass. Why isn't this drug rapidly going through clinical trials? I'm not saying immediately give it to people, even though I don't think that would yield more negative consequences than not.
CBD isn't toxic in any rational sense of the word, has been used by people for thousands of years, has a negligible side-effect profile, though psychoactive has a very small potential for addiction, and demonstrates efficacy for disorders comparable to widely used medications without near the amount of danger/adverse effects. I can't think of any acute risks.
Psilocybin/Mescaline:
I will now speak on a few natural psychedelics, including psilocybin and mescaline. LSD, 2C-B, and whatever other synthetics with psychedelic properties should logically be assumed to be less safe than ones which have been integrated into human culture for as long as writing has been, if not for longer.
Psilocybin and Mescaline have more ethos and scientific studies behind them than they used to for treating a form of atypical depression, an affliction perhaps usually brought on by the relative inhumanity (or 'inanimility') of our lives. Of course the former is more studied than the latter, and has a much higher LD50 (it takes a lot more to overdose, though mescaline also induces vomiting, a safety catch a la ethanol), but has more potential to induce a bad trip.
Importantly, psychedelic substances present a very real danger: the 'bad trip', or mental hell (which I think is merely a total realization of the uselessness of consciousness, but that's my opinion) after which one may experience negative, enduring psychoactive effects after the drug has worn off. One cannot mess around with these substances. I'm not fucking kidding. I've gone through bad trips and psychotic depression as a result of psilocybin abuse, and I am still in recovery. Unfortunately, though even one psychedleic experience can cure a chronic, debilitating, decades-long mental illness while providing the most meaningful experience one has ever had, being mentally ill in general will make one more succeptible to having a bad trip. If a mentally ill person who wants to try psychedelic therapy doesn't talk to several of those who have done to the same, read up comprehensively on the effects, and isn't well prepared (in general doesn't understand or respect the unique nature of these chemicals), they are likely to experience an acute hell followed by an enduring one.
One might then wonder why even take the risk of psychedelic therapy if the outcome could be a dramatic worsening of ones condition, if not total ruin, in contrast to the remarkable psycho-physiological safety of cannabidiol. This is largely the ostensible institutional justification for not allowing psychedelic use, while many of us suspect another reason is that psychedelics so profoundly influence the mind that the stability of society is at risk in the minds of officials. If one takes too much of anything, there are negative consequences. That's it.
The truth is that bad trips are extremely rare. The risk of an adverse effect is simply much less than is socially perceived.
From my readings, I've come to the conclusion that we must take a middle ground, as Buddha taught, though I'm not Buddhist. People like Leary could ruin society; he never respected the consequences of psychedelics, and most likely compromised his health by taking it too often and at too high a dose. By the same token, if we are stagnant and prohibit freedom, society will ruin itself. The integration of new mindstates/cultures has always contributed to a more liberal, utilitarian society overall. I think governments and centers of learning are starting to realize this. This is getting off-topic though. Help the sick first.
Please read my scientifically rigorous paper on psilocybin for more information. As regards to mescaline, there is surprisingly little scientific information on it.
Both of these substances are internationally 100% illegal for human consumption, save various jurisdictions in which there is either very little law, the cultural significance of the substance outweighs (usually externally motivated) prohibitive legislation, or there are governmental exceptions for religious use.
My point on psychedelics isn't to be taken out of context. Clearly some offer a unique mechanism and course of action against severely debilitating mental illness. Why not have one more tool to combat our inherently self-destructive brains?
Cathinone:
A stimulating amine. Found in the Khat plant. Internationally, Schedule I. It has a very similar psychopharmacological profile to amphetamine, which for all intents and purposes was discovered in the 20th century; amphetamine is Schedule II. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1508843 The question is of course why we insist using a chemical which only really started to be used eighty years ago in place of one which has been around thousands, or at least why we don't test the clinical viability of each against the other. People in North Africa/The Middle East use khat in a similar way to how Westerners use coffee.
There is one cathinone though, bupropion (or budeprion or Welbutrin) which is widely clinically used and indicated for depression. It functions as mostly a norepinepherine re-uptake inhibitor, and is about as abusable as strong coffee. Bupropion is the only norepinepherine-dopamine re-uptake inhibitor on the market which is indicated for depression. Bupropion in my opinion is a very nasty chemical in that it acts as an antagonist at a sub-unit of the nicotinic acetylcholline receptor, leading to a decrease in cognition and pleasure. So I have to choose between my optimal intelligence and not being depressed? Dopaminergic medications are hardly ever used for depression. Why? People deserve more options.
That's not to say dopaminergics should be first-choice medicines. But its funny: health professionals tell us that its probably a deficiency in monoamines that cause depression, yet they'll only work to increase two of them in a direct manner!? Oh, but I can sacrifice my intelligence to be happy. No thanks. This is not to say everyone has had a similar experience on bupropion, but justifying psychopharmacologically and anecdotally, it has severe negative effects on cognition. This goes along well with it being touted as an effective bi-polar medication, which medications typically restrain the thought process.
Diethylpropion, a cathinone derivative, is only used as an anorectic, yet has an abuse liability much less than amphetamine, doesn't rape the nicotinic receptor, and is a clinically safe medicine. Most people don't know it exists.
Dopaminergics, or lack thereof:
The current failure of the pharmaceutical institution to vouch for directly dopaminergic drugs for depression is a major flaw in modern psychiatry. Forty years ago one could be prescribed amphetamine for depression without much of a problem. In fact, amphetamine was once considered the wonder drug, used for over thirty distinct mental illnesses. Someone today, one subject to the bias of media and government, would probably say its a horrible idea to give people amphetamine for depression, that the dose will have to be continually increased, and that the purported anti-depressant effect is merely a high, a band-aid which doesn't actively fix the brain. This is wrong, fear-mongering, similar to the irrational fear of a bad trip. Amphetamine has neurogenic effects on the brain just as SSRIs, a mood-effect which doesn't disappear on a stabilized dose, and is safe in therapuetic doses.
And I think this is starting to become institutionally apparent, if it already wasn't by many independently-minded doctors. Shire is currently conducting phase three trials of lisdexamphetamine as an adjunct to an SSRI for treatment-resistant depression. And stimulants are frequently used off-label in combination with other medicines for treatment-resistant depression, depending on your doctor's experience.
Beware: The justification for scant use of dopaminergics in patients with depression has literature behind it: if you abuse your medicine, you're fucked, and don't deserve to take it, just about regardless of how much you need it.
I've come to realize a few things about mental illness, things a famous psychiatrist with several decades of experience has affirmed: mental illness constantly morphs with time to not just become "worse" or "better", but to be more, or less, reminiscent of a particular disorder (there exists an infinite variety of combinations of symptoms from seemingly ; everyone has a unique disorder; even if someone is, say, bipolar (like me), stimulants could calm them (like me); one can experience a wide variety of effects from any medication.
More later...
