As an outsider, that American obsession with prescripted medication seems maddening. Many of these conditions are caused by underlying societal factors and are nowhere near as widespread outside the US. The American solution is to throw more pills at the problem, or ostracise the patients not willing to take that route. Even children are offered an ever larger number of pills, and are constantly challenged about their self-identification.
Ok but this isn't really true. The country with the most anti-depressant intake is Iceland, the US is around second or third place, yet the other countries in the "top ten" of antidepressant usage per capita are almost all european nations. The USA isn't an outlier, but I guess we really can't escape the "do americans really, really do X?" even when it is trivially easy to verify.
The funny thing is that the reason Americans know the names of their medications is almost the exact same reason people seem to think the USA are always some sort of outlier; they hear about it more in the media! Branding for drugs is much more emphasized in the US.
In fact, the US[0] and New Zealand are the only countries were drug advertising like we see in the US are even legal. This absolutely will have an affect on perception
Great point. Another thought: prescriptions are often a healthcare provider's sole tool. They can't fix structural societal woes or make you exercise, eat healthy, pursue CBT with a therapist, etc. But taking a daily pill is a reachable stepping stone for many patients.
Yeah, antidepressants are way more complicated, they have more side effects, and have to be monitored carefully to not make the underlying issues that caused the patient to take them worse. Suicidal thoughts plus antidepressants that give you energy can give you the motivation to go through it. And despite not being categorized as addictive you can't stop taking them without wrecking your mental health until your body readjusts. If you don't refill your Rx of antidepressants your doctor will be notified and reach out to you because stopping has such pronounced effects.
While at the same time despite being a controlled substance because they're supposedly so addictive people with ADHD forget to take adderall and with normal use you don't take it every day.
We got this this shit so unbelievably backwards because we haven't shook the puritanical bullshit of "oh no someone might experience euphoria if they go out of their way to abuse it." Like bro, people with real medical issues shouldn't suffer because of this crap. If everyone who is buying cocaine from their dealer switched to medically supervised stimulants we would be unquestionably better off.
> While at the same time despite being a controlled substance because they're supposedly so addictive people with ADHD forget to take adderall and with normal use you don't take it every day.
This is incorrect: Normal use of stimulant medication is to take it regularly every day.
We also have evidence from studies showing that the brain adapts to consistent dosing in order to counter some of the damaging oxidative effects of amphetamine. Inconsistent dosing could undermine this adaptation and does not mirror the dosing protocol used in studies to determine long term safety. Sporadic dosing is also known to cause sensitization effects in studies, which can sensitize people to the negative side effects of a drug or exaggerate cravings.
Some people do take medication holidays as recommended by doctors, but even those should be done on a pre-determined schedule.
People get themselves into trouble when they start treating Adderall like an ad-hoc drug that they can take more or less of depending on how they feel that day or how much work they need to get done. This not only leaves the brain in a constant and unpredictable state of flux, it creates an association between “I need to do work” and “I need more Adderall”. Patients who go down this path often end up escalating doses, playing games with saving up pills to take more, or trying to talk their prescribers into extra dosages beyond what they need. It ultimately ends with higher tolerance and reduce effectiveness.
> If you don't refill your Rx of antidepressants your doctor will be notified and reach out to you because stopping has such pronounced effects.
This also isn’t true. There are many medications with withdrawal symptoms far worse than antidepressants. Some drugs can be potentially fatal if discontinued abruptly. Pharmacies don’t generally hunt down doctors when a patient doesn’t get a refill.
Antidepressant withdrawal (without taper) can be difficult for some, but so can withdrawing from Adderall. There are entire subreddits acting as support groups for people tapering down Adderall and trying to get back to feeling normal after taking Adderall for years.
Stimulants are definitely habit-forming and have a high abuse potential. Let’s not downplay it.
> Normal use of stimulant medication is to take it regularly every day.
Yeah, that doesn't really track with the fact that non-extended release lasts about 6 hours and extended release lasts about 8. Every single doctor I have ever been to has told me to take it as needed and try to not take it if possible so I don't form a habit and build a tolerance. Doing this I've managed to stay on the same exact dose for years. I would be willing to chalk it up to doctor doing it wrong but I see people whose job is specifically to oversee ADHD patients' medication and they say the same thing.
It's technically possible to be under it's effects for your entire waking hours and overlap to smooth the comedown in the middle but it's never prescribed this way so you'll always be in a state of flux.
> and does not mirror the dosing protocol used in studies to determine long term safety [...] it creates an association between “I need to do work” and “I need more Adderall”
Both of these are absolutely true which is why the studies are silly since nobody takes stimulants this way. And I absolutely have that association but it leads me to take less not more. If I want to spend the day hyperfixating on a new video game I can and just skip it. I can wait until understimulation and executive dysfunction actually impacts me.
I know it's not what you mean but I still think "this medication is incredibly habit forming so make sure to take it habitually" is really funny.
> Pharmacies don’t generally hunt down doctors when a patient doesn’t get a refill.
It was my insurance company actually. They called my doctor to see if I was supposed to still be taking it, told him to reach out, and then called me and sent a whole informational pamphlet about why it's important to take it regularly.
My doctor suggests that I don't take my adhd meds when I don't need it (school/work), and has had no objection for me to only take them on weekdays. That would absolutely not be the case for antideps.
I don't disagree, but stats are hard to come by for other types of psychiatric drug. I'd be interested to know if international studies have done on the subject, because it might very well not be an ideal "proxy" for general drug usage!
But I also personally think that adderall has less side effects and better/smoother withdrawals. SSRIs and other antidepressants usually have a heavier impact on the brain too.
Now I don't doubt that Adderall is probably over prescribed, but I think that it is better to look at entire families of drugs to compensate for differences between markets.
Iceland and the Scandinavian countries have, let's say, "weather-related" reasons for their depressions. They are introvert societies with the highest percentage of single-person households.
The reason for the US being close to them could be the high prescription culture and the social aggression inherent in everyday US life, masked behind curteous words, customer-oriented interaction and polished looks.
OK but I don't think chalking it up to 'weather-related reason' is entirely accurate either. That may make up a portion of it [1] but it doesn't make up all of it [2]. And I agree that the US has a high prescription culture, but you could argue too that this is an artifact of having an exceptional health care system by most metrics. Mental health disorders are complex with a multitude of causes and it's rather reductive to say that they're due to "the social aggression inherent in US life".
I mean sure, if you are being as charitable as possible with Scandinavia while also being as uncharitable to the US (with pretty insane stereotypes about american society), you will always find a way to conclude that "america bad, nordics good". But what's the point ? Can I also use tired, extremely hyperbolic stereotypes about Scandinavia?
(Funny though that you actually say that everyday life is masked behind courteous words in the US, which is one of the those widespread stereotypes about... Scandinavia and nordic countries in general.)
What was that about Swedes not even sharing meals with visitors, and eating in front of them while the visitor sits at the dinner table looking at them eat? Or Denmark kicking out all of their syrian refugees after they have lived there for years, kids included, to send them back to a warzone? See that explains the antidepressant intake!
Most of the US is significantly south of much of continental Europe (not just Scandinavia), as a point of comparison. We (broadly) experience longer days in the winter than Europeans.
GP is talking about winter sunlight, not year-round numbers. (Longer summer days don't help seasonal affective disorder.) Stockholm sees about 6 hours of daylight at winter solstice, while Seattle sees 8.25.
And Seattle is sort of cherry-picked -- it's one of the northern-most cities in the continental US, representing 1.2% of the US population (including the full metro area). LA sees 9.75 hours of daylight on the solstice. Honolulu sees 10.75 hours.
The US population-weighted centroid is approximately Missouri[1], which sees 9.5 hours of daylight on the solstice -- more than 50% more than Stockholm.
I see a few issues with your argument. Just because something has underlying social factors doesn't mean that it shouldn't also be treated with drugs and therapy. The latest wave of psychedelic research is not simply pushing a prescription drug; all of the research on MDMA, psilocybin, etc. is finding that these drugs work within a clinical setting paired with therapy. Also, I wasn't able to find a source saying that PTSD is less prevalent outside of the US. I found one study [1] that says that treatment seeking is higher in high-income countries. However, this doesn't imply that the US has higher rates than Europe, for example. It could also be the case that the disorder is just as prevalent or higher in lower income populations without access to mental healthcare.
Honestly, facilitate a culture of supportive interconnection between people where we are less afraid to share our deepest selves, even when they are shameful and painful, and more confident that we will receive the open-hearted support we need at a time like that.
erm... reduce the number of traumatic, life-threatening situations by taking away the guns? Get your police force under control and stop trying to control peoples minds and bodies could be a good start?
I am fairly skeptical of the claim that banning guns would significantly reduce gun violence. People who commit the most gun violence crimes (criminals) will find a way to get guns regardless of the laws.
I live in a country where it's very hard to get weapons legally, yet almost every drug bust in the news also contains a significant amount of confiscated firearms.
The more barriers to entry the less likely someone is to buy a gun on impulse or "just to have." When they're not common on the street it's not needed to carry one for defence either.
You say that drugs busts etc. outside the US will often have guns involved. Yes, criminals can still find ways to get them but ordinary people won't be bothered with this.
The Netherlands for example has Europe's biggest port in Rotterdam and sees an incredible amount of drug-related smuggling. It has 3.9 guns per 100,000 people (107th in the world) while the US has 88.8 (1st in the world).
The rate of murder is 73 times more than the Netherlands.
My high-school friend was killed on holiday shortly after takeoff when a Buk 9M38 surface-to-air missile shot the plane down, killing 196 Dutch civilians.
A famous crime reporter got shot in the street for covering a story about a high ranking drug lord.
A news outlet got shot with a bazooka.
So lets do some statistics:
How many American civilians in the past 10 years have been killed with a surface-to-air-missle, adjusted for population? Zero. 196 for The Netherlands.
How many crime reporters got killed in that period? Five for the US, two for The Netherlands.
How many news outlets got shot with a bazooka? I can't find any, but please correct me. One in The Netherlands.
The thing with statistics is. You can make up anything you want to frame a certain view.
I see your point but that incident didn't happen in a any way that can be tied to the regulatory measures that different states take, whereas gun crime can, so it feels like something of an apples and oranges comparison to me.
Want to say as an aside from the discussion that I'm sorry to hear about your friend and I hope that you got all the support you deserved during that time and since.
Vermont has allowed people to carry a concealed weapons without a license - literally buy a handgun, stick it in your pants - and has had a consistently lower murder rate than Washington DC which banned handguns until recently.
I meant more in comparison to other nations in Europe for example. It's difficult to compare individual states within the US because of how guns travel across state lines.
Czech Republic has very liberal gun laws, you can get a concealed carry permit with less effort than some US states and the murder rate is 0.72 per 100,000.
Also bear in mind the expected murder chance of the average person from the Netherlands dropped into the US is not expected to be anything like the US average murder rate. The US is not nearly as demographically homogenous as the Netherlands and someone with Dutch heritage experiences much closer to Dutch murder rates in the US.
Apologies for the mix up with the rate. 8x is still on the side of my argument though.
I cherry picked the Netherlands because of the large amount of drug trade there. Every other country in Europe compared favorably to the United States.
From what I can see there is a similar level of diversity in the Netherlands and the US. In both countries around 30% of people are born abroad. In the US around 72% are white and in the NL around 76% are ethnically Dutch. In Rotterdam in particular around half of the population was born to Non-Dutch parents.
This past week in the US there have been several stories about people who were shot after ringing a doorbell or pulling into someone's driveway. Reducing the number of guns means that these people would not be able to enact this type of senseless violence.
It would also certainly cut down on the numbers of toddlers shooting their siblings.
The notion that taking away legal guns from legal gun owners will somehow reduce illegal violence is about as absurd as outlawing drugs.
People who want to do illegal drugs have had zero problems acquiring them, despite near infinite resources plowed into stopping them by governments at all levels.
Most people gleefully chant "The war on drugs has failed"...yet, "The war on guns" will somehow succeed?
This does stand in contrast to other nations not having the problem to the degree that we do.
And... really, any other evidence. It is illegal for you to build and detonate a bomb in the city. Not shockingly, we have few incidents of this happening. Far fewer than random gun violence in places you are allowed to carry guns.
Heck, just set realistic goals here. We make it illegal to drive without a seatbelt, and have largely succeeded in getting folks to wear a belt while in a car. Something far far easier to just not do than the active "seek out an illegal gun" idea that you posit would continue to be a thing.
We control fireworks more readily than we do guns. Again, no surprise that we have far fewer counts of incidents with fireworks. And again, also no surprise it isn't zero.
> It is illegal for you to build and detonate a bomb in the city
It is illegal to kill someone, even without a gun, under most circumstances. Perhaps we should make it double-illegal?
> Far fewer than random gun violence in places you are allowed to carry guns
This is false. Most gun violence does not occur from legal gun owners, or in places allowing concealed or overt carry.
No, most gun violence occurs with illegal guns by people committing crimes.
There is no realistic way for you or anyone to take away all of the illegal guns in America. Therefore, any proposed gun ban solely impacts legal gun owners - which statistically are not the problem. It sure sounds good though...
You really don't seem to be arguing in good faith. If it is already "illegal to kill someone" and we shouldn't "make it double-illegal", then we don't need vehicular manslaughter laws, either. For that matter, why have any of the regulations on safely operating anything. After all, it would be illegal for the worst case already? Why restrict sales of ingredients that can make meth? Why regulate anything?
And how is it false that we have more random gun violence than bombing? I can list, this week, more than 1 place where a legal gun owner killed someone. It is famously in the news right now. When is the last time we had a random bomb in a city here?
I haven't even proposed taking away all guns. Nobody gives a shit about most hunting weapons. Nor do they care about any properly held weapons with responsible care and protections.
And here's the issue then. What anti-gun advocates argue are weapons not good for hunting is misguided. Additionally, it doesn't matter if a gun was designed to hunt or not - the gun is an inanimate object.
People like to discuss banning AR-15's all day, failing to realize just how many similar-but-not-AR-15's model rifles exist out there, most of which fire the same cartridge too. No, but that one particular model is the problem because it says "AR-15" on the side (most don't even say that btw).
California already tried this and failed. California banned certain model rifles by name. Famously it banned "Colt AR-15" rifles... well guess what, people just bought S&W AR-15's instead. Ban the word "AR-15" and people will just buy "AR-16"s, or "NOT-15"s, or whatever. It's an impossible thing to ban.
It apparently doesn't matter than handguns kill the most people... those scary black AR-15's we see on movies are clearly the problem. After all, the bullet explodes and ruins the meat!
The anti-gun debate is not grounded in facts or reality - which is why anti-gun proponents make no headway (thankfully).
> And how is it false that we have more random gun violence than bombing?
People rarely seek to indiscriminately kill or maim large numbers of people - which is what a bomb does. Your mass shootings are super rare events.
Not long ago, bombs were going off with a near cadence all across the US, mostly from political extremists. Why did the bombing stop? Was it because we made bombs illegal? Of course not, blowing people and buildings up was already illegal.
Nobody is hunting with handguns or high powered rifles with high capacity magazines. Back when I did bird hunt, the entire community would jump on any fool that fired more than the allowed shells in a gun in rapid fire. It is obvious when it happens, and hilarious with how regulated guns actually are in hunting communities.
So, I reiterate. Nobody gives a shit about those. They are instead trotted out as a straw man to silence regulation of weapons.
I'm a little confused by your angle at this point, honest. Gun regulation should go after high capacity items and hand guns. After that, reckless regard to care and storage of munitions. Could probably move to control of the ammunition, as I can think of frightening few reasons for folks to have hollow point or incendiary rounds? Unsure that would make any real impact. Controlling handguns, though, is clearly something that should be done. It sounds like you agree there? Why sideline it with talking about how people are talking about AR-15s inaccurately? You literally brought that into this conversation.
If you want to know why bombing has gotten less, btw. It almost certainly went with more regulation of the ingredients that go into bombs. If you buy a lot of the ingredients that go into TNT, expect you will be rightfully checked up on.
I don't know what you're considering "high powered", but hunting rifles actually tend to be on the larger caliber side of things. If you're shooting a large mammal, using something like a 22 is just unnecessary cruelty. You want a round that will kill as fast as possible, so .338 in, .30-06 or 7.62 mm are the calibers of choice. If you're talking about .50 BMG as "high powered", then lucky for you, "high powered" rifles are almost never used in crime. They're just too expensive. In the few cases that they were used, I can't find a case where the "high powered" nature of it was actually relevant.
And I have the exact opposite point of view with regard to HP rounds. If we're talking handguns, we're talking self defense, and in self defense situations, the only rounds you want are hollow point. Because they're designed to flatten out on impact, they go through a lot fewer walls, ceilings, and home invaders, making the shooter far less likely to accidentally over-penetrate into their family or neighbors. Using full metal jacket for home defense is putting everybody else at excessive risk.
Incendiary rounds are for fun, and little else. They look scary, but they don't really have any real effect.
This kind of illustrates one of the big issues with firearms discourse in the US: people who like having guns tend to know a lot about them, and take for granted that people have that same knowledge, neglecting the fact that there's a whole other group of people who know next to nothing about them. Then the people who know next to nothing about firearms propose gun legislation which is just baffling to anyone who knows anything about guns, like banning specific models of firearm, or certain ergonomic features, or banning silencers/suppressors (this isn't Goldeneye, they just make it less hearing damagingly loud to shoot).
I'm almost swayed by the animal cruelty argument, at the same time, the best hunters I know are all bow hunters. Such that, yes, it will be harder; but hunting isn't supposed to be easy.
Guns are largely fun for most that have them. Little else. Such that I don't think that changes things.
I should note that I've probably owned more guns than makes sense. Had friends with desert eagles. There is basically no reason for any high school age kid to have access to the kind of crap I had access to. It isn't so much ignorance as flat disregard for the bullshit reasons so many pro gun folks put forth. Including here. Your "need this for self defense" is a large part of the reason folks "need them for self defense." It is circular at best, and you can only make it work by poisoning the conversation with pulling in hunting.
So, please, play the scenario out. You take away all the legal guns... now what? Violence ends? Right? Right?
What's the plan for taking away all the illegal guns? What's the plan to protect citizens that are now disarmed?
Why don't we just focus on taking away all the illegal guns? Oh, right... we have been... for 89 years - yet there's more illegal guns on the streets today than in 1934. What a shock...
Kind of like how there's more drugs readily available to average citizens than before the "war on drugs" started. It's literally an impossible task... have you seen the homemade guns in countries with outright bans? Or worse, illegally imported automatic firearms. Regular Joe - no gun. Criminal Joe, full auto!
People like to point at Prohibition as evidence an outright ban of Drugs can never work. Yet, it's different with guns somehow?
You're looking at an infected wound and deciding the appropriate treatment is duct tape.
Why duct tape? Because you haven't bothered to even learn rudimentary medical knowledge but are a self-proclaimed expert. Duct tape holds things together, so why not? Banning guns means no gun violence, right? Why don't we just make it illegal to hurt or kill people? It's already illegal? Ok, make it double-illegal, that'll show them!
At what point did I propose taking away "all legal guns?"
I have put forth regulating all guns. But, it doesn't take an active imagination to see that regulation is not a total banning/taking away. We still have cats, after all.
Edit: leaving cats, for obvious reasons. I meant cars.
> high powered rifles with high capacity magazines
And you'd be wrong with this assertion again, because the definition of "high powered" and "high capacity" are vastly different for your anti-gun advocates versus reality.
A .223 Remington cartridge is not "high powered". A 20 round magazine was what the gun was designed for, making that the standard capacity magazine, not 10 rounds like some advocate for.
A .50 BMG could be considered "high powered" - and it's banned in California. However, in California you can purchase .416 Barret, which is even more effective at range than .50 BMG - and it's perfectly legal. Make sense out of that one...
> frightening few reasons for folks to have hollow point or incendiary rounds
This is a statement made out of ignorance. It's all about the energy transferred into the target. A HP bullet is designed to transfer as much energy into the target as possible to prevent over-penetration (where you shoot someone through a wall accidentally, for instance) and can be considered a safety-feature for defense. You really do not want a reality where people are forced to use FMJ for self defense...
> If you buy a lot of the ingredients that go into TNT, expect you will be rightfully checked up on.
Look up how to make Anfo. It's not difficult, and the components are not regulated. The use, however, is regulated, ie. it's illegal to make a bomb and blow people up.
> Back when I did bird hunt, the entire community would jump on any fool that fired more than the allowed shells in a gun in rapid fire
Sport hunting is akin to golf. There are rules for etiquette and "fairness" reasons, even if that seems silly to an outsider. Additionally, at an established gun range, few allow rapid fire unless you are a member. This is for safety reasons, nothing else. Joe walking in off the street with zero firearms training should not be mag-dumping for obvious reasons.
> Nobody is hunting with handguns
There's an entire community of folks who do just that.
We cannot have productive conversations about gun control until anti-gun advocates educate themselves and refrain from abusing and redefining established words.
I'm not wrong, you are just looking to nitpick your way to success here. You are the one poisoning the conversation with supposed mistakes and nitpicks. I could as easily nitpick that arsenic is perfectly fine to feed to people, so that we should not have laws against poisoning.
The statement on hollow and incendiary isn't ignorance, it is somewhat flat disbelief that it is typically successful at the things you put forth. I'm well aware of the reasons to try and use them. That said, I'm also well aware that that is never what is accomplished with them. Though, again, I had a question mark on that sentence as I really don't care too much about those. They are, for all practical purposes a side show.
And I want you to reread the "that is for safety reasons, nothing else." What the flying fuck do you think we are talking about? Gun safety regulation. Fucking period.
It's a lot like arguing with a child about why the sky is blue. Facts and realities don't apply.
Your comments about HP bullets, and particularly incendiary munitions (lol) are absurd and uninformed. But it doesn't matter, you will not educate yourself on the topic no matter how wrong you may be, and therefore we cannot have a productive conversation regarding gun control.
The "I fired a gun once, and now I'm an expert" crowd is exhausting. You've spent hundreds of words here, in public, clearly demonstrating your staggeringly poor command of this topic.
And gun control advocates always ask, why has no progress been made? Because the conversation is not being held from a rational position.
I find your insistence that you are the rational one laughable, at best. Pedantic, to the extreme, I would give you. Rational? Nope. Children desperately hanging on to their toys. Everyone's health be damned.
On the off chance you come back to this. I would like to apologize for how rude I think I was to the end there. You are clearly prepared with talking points, and this is not a conversation I want to devote too much time to. That is no reason for me to be rude when I am engaged. Apologies.
I was speaking specifically of people getting shot for something like knocking on the door of the wrong house. That's a tiny minority of gun-related deaths and not something anyone really needs to worry about any more than they worry about getting in their car or crossing the street every day.
Because all laws and bans are tradeoffs. By banning something that doesn't have a significant effect you might be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
How many lives are saved and traumas avoided through people's ability to defend themselves with guns? If that number is higher than the number of toddler accidents, gun ban would effectively cause an increase in PTSD and deaths.
P.S.: just to clarify, by "significant" I mean significant in a statistical sense of not being insignificant (very close to zero, noise-level), not "majority".
That's a fair point. I took the premise to be that there was already a higher trauma rate in the US based on the fact that there is so apparently so much medication given out for trauma related issues compared to other countries. This had been suggested above but I didn't look into it further.
> How many lives are saved and traumas avoided through people's ability to defend themselves with guns
Self defence with guns sounds pretty traumatising for all involved to be fair.
I'm not a psychologist, but intuitively, most trauma seem to have an element of helplessness in them. Being able to defend yourself and your loved ones with guns would therefore cause less trauma than having to wait for police to come, or just being hurt/seeing a loved one
hurt/murdered in front of you.
Still, we're stepping deep into the speculation area here, so I won't stand behind this argument very strongly.
The act of committing violence against another person with a weapon itself is traumatic. Most people can't simply turn off their instinct for empathy and kill another person in cold blood simply because the other is an "enemy," and not suffer psychological consequences, possibly even PTSD. Even police officers, professional killers that they are, have to go through mandatory counseling and assessment after a shooting.
Realistically, your argument isn't to lessen trauma, but to simply normalize it. Which is exactly what American culture already does.
> Realistically, your argument isn't to lessen trauma, but to simply normalize it. Which is exactly what American culture already does
No, actually, my argument is that killing or injuring a person in self-defense is less traumatic than being helpless while getting assaulted.
Besides, trauma is relative - "normalizing" trauma is another way of saying "being desensitised" - which is exactly the process therapy itself employs to help people relieve the effects of it.
There's also different levels of trauma involved in the kind of assault you're likelyt to come up against. Being held up at gunpoint is something I can't imagine happening in my life.
Oddly, I've once had a dream that I was being held at gunpoint.
A person unknown to me was holding a submachine gun, and I could literally feel the muscles tensing in my stomach, where the gun was pointed at, anticipating the pain of a bullet. It was one of the most uncomfortable and frightening things I've felt in my life, so much that I still remember the dream quite vividly.
I assume being held at gunpoint in real life would be even more frightening.
It’s not clear that the two aren’t one and the same. MDMA treatments for PTSD are not ongoing medications. Generally they are just 3 sessions of assisted therapy producing a huge reduction in symptoms.
If we can reduce the level of trauma and fear in society, we can reduce associated behaviors.
None of the above "gun violence"/"senseless violence" things given as reasons for gun control happen to my family on a regular basis either. By your logic I should question the choice of gun control .
FGC-9; everybody in Europe who wants a gun can trivially have it within a week without interacting with the criminal element or buying regulated components. That goes for modern ammunition too.
Oh please. Survey 100 random non-US residents and I’ll eat my hat if the majorly don’t say that US gun policy is absurd.
The typical American argument is that the US is exceptional and that the views of “these damn foreigners” don’t matter.
I on the other hand seldom hear Americans actively argue that US gun policy is looked upon favourably by the worldwide community. This is exactly what you’re doing by implying that a non-US resident speaking against US gun policy holds a certain political persuasion which means that they should be dismissed. The more likely reality: they have a very typical perspective that transcends the US.
Foreigner views are readily dismissed because they are based on biased, sensationalized narrative-driven media coverage of rare events. You don't get US small-town local news in the EU, for instance, so have no reference for how many non-violent stories are aired by comparison - or how many stories cover a happy ending of a homeowner defending themselves successfully. You only get the bad stuff.
Imagine if we got week-long, wall-to-wall coverage of nearly every stabbing that took place in the EU... Americans would start to believe you Europeans really need to get that knife situation under control.
The reality is, by the numbers, legal gun owners are rarely involved in illegal violence while using their firearms... and there isn't a darn thing anyone can do to remove guns from illegal gun owners.
Therefore, the issue, as perceived by a foreigner, is usually reduced to irrelevant talking points. It's just unproductive.
Why have the gun laws not changed significantly in the past few decades? Because most Americans do not agree with the sensationalized views pushed by the click/eyeball driven media. It's that simple. So then, as a foreigner, you should consider why that may be... perhaps there is another viewpoint after all?
European media is obsessed with the US and you can quickly tell by talking to anyone from there. If our media covered to the same degree the French torching their cities because they don't want to work, you'd think WW3 is starting.
I wouldn't be able to find a link, but I recall a Travel StackExchange question a couple years back where a European was asking how to stay safe from gun violence during their vacation to the US. They were terrified they might be randomly shot by a stranger, or pulled over and shot by the police.
Obviously this view of the US is deeply misguided - but this is the problem our sensational media creates. It makes rare events seems commonplace and irrationally freaks people out.
You might be overestimating how many Americans think anything at all about Europe. I suspect that the US is a lot more prevalent in European news than Europe is in US news.
Thinking gun policy isn't good is different then dealing with ptsd. That same survey, if you ask how many people have ptsd because of guns in America, maybe you get one,if that.
There are ways to mitigate, but not eliminate, the presence of traumatic situations. Whether that is the purview of government perhaps is another question.
I suspect war and bad family environment are a massive source of trauma of US persons; the path to mitigating the former at least facially is a bit more obvious.
This argument implies that approving MDMA therapy is one of the biggest efforts in the country, consuming huge resources that could go to solving big societal issues.
The obvious counterargument would be that having a real treatment for PTSD and other fear related conditions would likely ameliorate the social issues.
Yes, taking guns away would reduce shootings, but so would helping people who are so fearful they feel the need to shoot someone who isn’t threatening them.
I would also revoke all the mandatory reporting and other reporting laws for therapists, and remove the ability for government to use therapy/medical records for considering licensing or security clearances. These are barriers that keep people that need therapy most from seeking it.
There's something about American culture that facilitates various psychological conditions. The aggressive, over-expressive, utilitarian individualism, the inability to just stay calm and quiet and think in solitude, the emphasis on material wealth and well-being and looking "sexy", the social warriorism and activism on the same issues.
I think America is too vast and diverse to be described that way. Your description doesn't at all describe the no-gaudiness humble-behavior expected in most white, mid-western communities. Utilitarian individualism doesn't at all describe the vast swarth of America's most religious peoples. E.g. The Amish, the Johovah's Witness, Fundamentalists, Mormons, etc.
What you're describing is an extreme of American popular culture, which is a small, biased selection of the American population. I'd be interested to know if there's any evidence that these traits are higher in the average American than in other countries. For N=1, I am pretty quiet, calm, spend plenty of time meditating, and don't really care about superficial appearances.
That might explain this constant commentary I see from our European friends describing America with exaggerated stereotypes that bear little resemblance to reality.
I see it too. I suspect non-Americans consume a lot of US media and as a result feel sufficiently educated but they look just as silly and ignorant as Americans who think Europe is a country.
My views have changed about this a lot over the years. I've gone from feeling that medication is largely unnecessary and that there are alternative routes to feeling that carefully directed medications can and often should be used along with alternative therapies, when applicable.
Just throwing medication at a problem and calling it a day will never be useful, but seeing a lot of people find success with a mix of medications (amphetamines, ketamine, mushrooms, etc.) with therapy has been kind of eye opening.
A lot of this stems from blanket stigmatization of some drugs versus others.
Fixing society is a much larger (and ultimately fluid, unsolvable) problem so I feel like whatever people can do to find contentment should be on the table.
> Fixing society is a much larger (and ultimately fluid, unsolvable) problem so I feel like whatever people can do to find contentme
But why is it unsolvable? As the parent comment noted, these issues aren't as prevalent in other cultures. So why here? Why is these so much pain that needs to be medicated?
I'm not anti-meds. I think the re-introduction of MDMA and other formerly alternative meds is a good thing as they are more effective. And there will always going to be some people who need such assistance. However, we can still ask why? Why are so many suffering so much that they need meds?
>As the parent comment noted, these issues aren't as prevalent in other cultures
They said it without citing a source. There is evidence that there is higher treatment seeking for PTSD in high-income countries, including the US, but that doesn't mean it's exclusive to the US or that it isn't prevalent in lower-income countries with less access to mental healthcare.
It's unsolvable because there's no money to be made in fixing society. At least until society decays enough that no one bothers participating anymore and the economy starts to crumble.
I've seen an increase in the pursuite of hedonism over the past decade, and what it would take to steer society away from hedonism would be some huge event like 9/11 or ww3 to get people's eyes off the inordinate consumerism and chasing money. Or maybe just fix the economy, but the oligarchs would rather hoard money than ensure a healthy society.
> So we are content and complicit and stick with the status quo?
Why can't we be content but not "complicit" and still address issues? I'd argue having a growing population with mental health issues is less prepared to functionally address larger problems.
This feels like it's piggy backing off of a caricature of a zoned out druggie who doesn't care what's happening around them.
> As the parent comment noted, these issues aren't as prevalent in other cultures. So why here? Why is these so much pain that needs to be medicated?
They aren't "less prevalent". They're underdiagnosed and untreated.
Remember anti-vaxxers that yell about how vaccines caused autism? Except that western medicine started to correctly diagnose a lot of neurodivergent conditions better, that's why we realised that a lot of kids that can't stay still have a form of ADHD.
Poor family and community ties, a capitalism driven culture of dehumanization and commodification, and even people who are "making it" have often sacrificed and stressed a lot to escape poverty, so it's trading one pain for another.
It's important to keep in mind that while the combination of drugs+psychotherapy works better than either alone on average across a population, this doesn't mean that everyone should be pursuing both. Some people do not respond (or even respond negatively) to psychotherapy, just like with drug therapy. Psychotherapy as an industry also has some pretty serious problems with professional and scientific standards that tend to get swept under the rug because so many people lean into psychotherapy triumphalism (e.g. declaring that drugs are only good for enabling psychotherapy, or that everyone should be seeing a therapist).
> As an outsider, that American obsession with prescripted medication seems maddening.
Totally sympathize with that viewpoint, but I'm not sure if this commenter knows that MDMA will not be a prescription medication — no one is prescribed or goes home with MDMA. The treatment in the trials is only 3 medication-assisted therapy sessions with normal preparation and integration therapy sessions before and after. After those 3 MDMA sessions, the patient doesn't take MDMA again.
It's been clear since the beginning that it's psychedelic-assisted therapy — not just psychedelics — that makes the treatment effective.
> It's been clear since the beginning that it's psychedelic-assisted therapy — not just psychedelics — that makes the treatment effective.
Thank you for pointing this out. This is the key point that so many people miss by skimming the headlines.
These medication-assisted therapy trials are about the therapy first and foremost. Some of the trials have several dozen therapy sessions in their protocols and only a single or couple medication-assisted sessions.
People taking these drugs on their own at home are not doing anything resembling the therapy discussed in these trials. There are numerous stories of people taking psychedelics ad-hoc and ending up with worsened anxiety, derealization, persistent fears, delusional thoughts, and so on. The common wisdom in psychedelic circles was that set and setting is everything - Taking psychedelics while in a state of depression, anxiety, PTSD, or other conditions outside of the setting of closely monitored professional therapy is potentially quite negative.
MDMA very realistically shouldn’t be lumped in with cocaine, heroin, etc. Hell, opiates as a whole! Just based on the effect profile and typical usage patterns, I baselessly posit that one is more likely to be a daily marijuana user than a daily MDMA user, even taking into account the number of people that use each drug in the first place.
Nobody is holding you up with a knife or gun, or stealing the coins out of your car, to get their next fix of MDMA.
Nobody is acting aggressively on the street or in a nightclub because they’ve had MDMA, or not gotten enough of it.
MDMA is certainly not without its risks / dangers. Someone can easily irresponsibly take too much and end up in hospital or dead. Someone can easily take the right amount of the right stuff and end up in hospital or dead just because they had an adverse reaction. You could ruin your relationships, throw your brain off-balance such that you never really enjoy anything again. There’s the whole ‘gateway drug’ argument. Blah blah blah.
Let’s really stop and think very carefully about whether these risks (which unlike say…meth, heroin, etc, have an absolutely negligible societal impact per capita compared to alcohol, tobacco, etc) should even show up on the radar when weighed up against the increasingly proven positive effects of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy.
Take it from someone that's not from US - your comment is ignorant and toxic.
In US mental conditions are undertreated, while outside of US they are underdiagnosed and self medicated. I'm from Lithuania, one of the "leaders" in suicide... which are easily preventable by normalizing mental healthcare.
The stigmatization of mental conditions in Europe is sky high, to the point that it's barely possible to be seen as sane if you're just seeing a therapist. However, comments like your, are widespread amongst many in Europe and farther stigmatize accessible mental healthcare.
A lot of cases prescription medication is what people need to live with their mental issues, and should not be seen as "obsession". It's no more an obsession, than chemotherapy is an obsession to a person with cacner.
> The stigmatization of mental conditions in Europe is sky high, to the point that it's barely possible to be seen as sane if you're just seeing a therapist.
I think this is just not true. I've never seen so many people talk openly about seeing a therapist as in the last few years. I'm almost surprised by how mainstream it has become.
This applies as well to the US in many cases. I think Europeans frequently underestimate how much of our governmental authority rests with the States. Policies vary considerably across the nation, so any generalizations should be approached carefully.
This is not true today and is the tail end of an absolutely massive societal shift in the english speaking world driven by the now 25-35 age block who broke the stigma.
I generally agree with the sentiment that American culture tends to over-prescribe medication. That said, I've had a lot of incredibly positive experiences with psychedelics and I think taking a substance under the supervision of a trained therapist is different than just handing out bottles of pills.
The other great thing about psychedelics is that they're typically only used temporarily as opposed to many other kinds of prescription antidepressants, which often need to be taken for extended periods or for life. The pharma industry has tended to favor solutions that incentivize the latter and I think we desperately need alternatives that don't require long-term intervention.
I agree but it’s hard to navigate out of it organically. The mental health crisis is quite similar in origin as the obesity epidemic. In the latter it is largely caused by the food environment and we could avoid the vast majority of cases of diabetes by changing our societal food environment, but how does one do that?
A politician that bans or regulates sugar is not going to be popular. People want their sweets, or at least the option to have sweets. So what is the medical system to do if it can’t modify the food environment? It generates drugs that treat the diseases caused by the food environment. Similar with mental health.
There are society-wide environmental factors likely contributing to huge rates of depression and anxiety, but how is any one person or organization supposed to change that? So what does the medical system do? It generates drugs to treat the mental health conditions caused by environmental factors.
It’s a bad equilibrium but it’s hard to see a path out. Otherwise if you decide drugs are bad you have still have the environmental causes there and a bunch of untreated diabetes and suicidal people.
I think it's more nuanced. If anything, MDMA therapy goes _hand in hand_ with dealing with the societal factors, because as an empathogen it enables you to deal with trauma in a loving and caring way.
This is not about "correcting" imbalances in the brain or brushing issues under the rug, it's about dealing with them directly.
Depression and anxiety are complicated. For some patients, taking medication can be transformative, especially when combined with other modalities of treatment. In my experience, you still have to put in the work, but the right medication can make it possible. If you are worried about patients being ostracized for declining medication, worry too about ostracizing patients for whom it could be really effective.
Normally, I’d agree with you, but in this case, I think the medication is warranted. While PTSD may be caused by societal factors, healing large numbers of individuals from it is not going to happen without medication. Speaking as someone who is recovering from PTSD, I can tell you that no amount of talk therapy can heal it. It can help, but never heal it. If MDMA is effective as it appears to be, we must utilize it. If we heal people from PTSD, then we have a chance to heal society.
I don’t think that’s a uniquely American problem at all. When you go to a doctor with a problem, the only tool they have available to help you is medical treatments. If you go to a doctor with a psychological problem, or a lifestyle problem, the only way they can help you is with a medical treatment. Any place you go in the world you’ll find huge amounts of mental health or lifestyle-related physical health problems, and they’ll either be untreated, or medicated. With the only factor that influences the ration between those two being how economically developed that place is. The only thing unique about the US is the amount of money put into healthcare. But they’re pumping the kids full of drugs in Australia too…
I rarely downvote, but this take is just straight-up factually incorrect and it is the top comment as of now. The facts and assumptions here are rebutted in other replies, so I'll leave them to it.
> that American obsession with prescripted medication seems maddening
Yes but don't confuse short term use of medication to help with therapy with long-term to help sell pills.
The first can be beneficial, the latter is very profitable. And because of the profit motive, millions of poor people with serious conditions go untreated.
What is really bad is the complete absence of any public debate about prevention. Individuals are completely blamed for mental health issues and society gets a pass.
> and are constantly challenged about their self-identification.
The success in these studies is largely short term. There are many drugs that will help - even cure - depression over the short term. The risk is that people will interpret the short term success as an excuse to always dose whenever they experience a hurdle. I remember well the claims of SSRI's when they first came out. It was nothing short of a wonder drug.
The article gives away perhaps the big underlying motivation to get these to market: its a potential billion dollar industry.
And that is fine. It's a good motivator to provide a great product.
I will never see anyone here complaining about the video game industry... The whole video games industry is pretty much a drug for a lot of mental issues. In fact all of the recreational activities have similar mental condition boosting effects.
I'm glad you brought that up. I always found it amusing that the best medicine for depression is to go out, meet people, engage with the world around you, but depression keeps you from doing that. American culture is very individualistic and there's very little pushing communities together, which would seem to exacerbate depression once it takes its hold..
1. Friends and family helping each other with their issues isn't profitable, but selling drugs to "help" with their issues is.
2. Similarly, unbroken families aren't profitable, but split up ones are: divorce proceedings, 2x apartments/houses/taxes, higher dependency on the state for assistance, no family to help through issues which may beget drugs (see #1).
I am not sure if medication is due to societal factors.
The list of countries with high antidepressant consumption is topped by Iceland, Australia, Portugal, UK, Canada and Sweden. All countries with a high quality of life, good safety nets, universal healthcare. Australia, Sweden and Iceland are exemplary progressive countries that are in the top 10 of the Human Development Index.
Except they are but they are just ignored because of lack of knowledge and money. Many countries don't even recognize ADHD so the kid never goes to college and doesn't reach their full potential.
Leaving aside the important fact there's no broad agreement about which "underlying societal factors" cause mental illness, individuals taking pills is much more realistic than overhauling society.
What you're saying may or may not be true, but it is orthogonal to the idea of exploring the role MDMA might have in improving the human condition and helping us understand existence.
You're even more pessimistic than me ;-). I think that most humans are good or at least neutral, but the horrible ones are a lot more visible. And a lot of what we call horrible is just rhetoric -- when the shit hits the fan, people pull together, even when they're ideologically opposed. At least in my experience. There are outliers, of course.
The classic Gen X parent “over-medicated child” scapegoat is stimulant medication for ADHD. It needs to be said that the reality for better or worse is that compared to other psych meds the efficacy is pretty damn high, and the entirely justified popular opinion in the ADHD community is that dealing with ADHD without stimulants is often like pushing a rock up a hill.
And, sure, argue that ADHD’s mere categorisation as a ‘bad thing’ is a reflection of society’s expectations of a person. But…so what? I’d love a socialist utopia. This is a big part of the reason I’d never ever move to the US in the first place. But I damn well still take my Vyvanse and don’t look down on anyone else that does so because we are all still cogs, even me as a fairly privileged tech worker.
Stroking your chin and saying “yeah, but we live in a society!” belongs right at the top of the metaphorical food pyramid. If you do it any more than rarely, you’re going to quite rightfully come across as a privileged dick.
This is notwithstanding the wider point that this whole thing is about using MDMA as a short-term therapy aid.
