As somebody who sometimes "treats" severe multi-decades-long depression with psychedelics, I'm not surprised that they'd have a positive impact but the news seems too unclear to my simple mind to make sense of a few things:<p>1- why is a private group on the stock market doing this, instead of public research & universities? vested interests in seizing a market of illegal drugs in a legal way worry me, because it's easy to completely forget the humans in the process when there's billions to be made<p>2- is 1mg declared a placebo with enough proof? I'm personally not receptive at all to any kind of "micro-dosing" but I've also seen equally anecdotal comments going exactly the opposite direction and loving that. Is there a study that thoroughly compares the 1mg dose to a fake product looking similar but with no psychoactive substance?<p>3- as someone keenly aware of an "afterglow" that can happen on psychedelics, I also don't see a proper discussion about (1) the potentially ephemeral nature of the benefits when taking a single dose, as well as (2) the difficulty of taking psychedelics along with pretty much any other treatment for mental health issues (SSRIs, MAOIs, anti-psychotics and so on, which all have their own counter-indications)<p>I very much love all the psychedelic experiences I've had in life, from simple doses to "heroic" and intensely crushing trips, and I've always tried to extract some long-term benefits from them during and post-trip, but even compared to a psychiatric treatment that doesn't help me quite enough (doesn't get rid of anhedonia, brain fog, suicidal ideation, etc etc), I have still come to see those trips as more of a targeted temporary relief for the soul that one should ideally leverage in the window of time post-trip - and not so much as an ongoing treatment in and of itself like what's offered by my meds.<p>At least from my limited perspective it hasn't been so much a treatment for a depression but a temporary relief from it, which offers a window of time to discuss anchoring constructive habits ("job search for an hour every morning", "clean up your house", ...) and having empathy for the self in pragmatic and measurable ways post-trip (cook yourself a meal, get a haircut, commit to physical activities again, etc). I'm not really convinced that we'll turn those substances into long-term treatments, but I could see them becoming a "shock therapy" of sorts.