There are no Bad Drugs

Pubdate: Sun, 11 Feb 2007
Source: Independent on Sunday (UK)Copyright: Independent Newspapers (UK) Ltd.
Contact: letters@independent.co.ukWebsite: http://www.independent.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/208
Author: Sophie Goodchild, Chief Reporter

SPECIAL K: KETAMINE BREAKTHROUGH IN TREATING DEPRESSION
Ketamine is the fastest growing drug on the dance scene, the chemical of choice for tens of thousands of clubbers.
But the class C drug, which is abused for its hallucinogenic effects, is now being hailed by scientists as a breakthrough treatment for severe depressives.
New research has found that patients who have failed to respond to more conventional drugs can be cured of depression within as little as two hours with an injection of ketamine. A study by the National Institute of Mental Health in Maryland found that in a third of cases the mood-lifting effects of the horse tranquilliser, known as Special K on the street, lasted at least a week.
This compares with prescription antidepressants that can take up to eight weeks to have any positive impact on patients who are hard to treat. Experts say that it could pave the way for a new class of faster and longer-acting medications.
Researchers believe that ketamine reduces depression-like symptoms in treatment of resistant people by blocking the protein or receptor in the brain that regulates mood, unlike antidepressants currently prescribed by doctors.
Ketamine is one of several banned drugs that have been found to have therapeutic benefits. Ecstasy has proved effective for traumatised servicemen who have fought in Iraq, and trials are also taking place involving rape victims who are given the drug to help them to recount their ordeals without triggering anxiety. Scientists have used LSD to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder and anxiety.

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More and more, my mantra on issues of public policy is to repeat FDR's great admonition: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Ketamine is only the most recent of the "bad drugs" -- those with no socially redeeming virtues -- to undergo rehabilitation. When Ketamine, or Special K, became popular with club kids, it was quickly rescheduled because it was "so dangerous." Granted, someone "in the K hole" may be scary for his friends to watch, its usage seems to carry with it few, if any long term detriments. As usual, its rescheduling did not limit its street availability. The main result was an on-going stream of burglaries and robberies of vet's offices and clinics to replace the earlier open supplies.

Earlier examples flesh out the story.

Marijuana was a respected, if little used, medicine when it was outlawed. A forty-year fight has not brought it back to respectability in spite of now overwhelming evidence of its safety and efficiacy in many severe medical situations. Like Ketamine and MDMA, it has also been shown efective in the treatment of PTSD, being used by the Israeli army.

LSD was widely used in psychotherapy when Congress outlawed it at the request of the CIA and army in 1968. At that time, over 5000 refereed medical journals reported on its use in tens of thousands of patients, with hundreds of thousands of doses administered. One of its most successful uses, ironically, was in the treatment of alcoholics.

MDMA (Ecstacy), now being tested for use in PTSD cases, was widely used in psychotherapy from about 1975 until its "emergency rescheduling" in 1986. In that case, over 275 psychologists and psychiatrists filed testimony about its importance in their practices and its safety. No medical testimony was presented against these uses. The only safety evidence presented by the DEA concerned the related drug, MDA, since the agency had no data about MDMA to use. In short, a useful and safe drug, commonly used in therapy, with no evidence that it was unsafe, was totally banned from use because some people (OK, a lot of people) were using it (also safely) recreationally. The result was that the retail price of a drug that was manufactured for less than ten cents a tablet jumped to a street price of twenty dollars a tablet; and soon over half the tabs on the market were counterfiets containing drugs that could be truly dangerous.

In almost any way you can think, banning a drug through fear causes much more harm than letting people have reasonable access to it.