For a long time people have been blindly trusting their doctors to give them the right medicine to treat them. The thing is, even doctors don't always know what they're talking about. I could go on and on about misdiagnosed patients all day, but that isn't the main concern in this post. The reason I'm writing this is because of the huge problems with people being put on antidepressants left and right as if they're miracle pills or something. They aren't for everybody and certain ones can have a high risk factor.
Currently illegal drugs such as MDMA (commonly known as the party drug "molly") and Ketamine have been given the opportunity to treat depression with very limited clinical trials. The problem with these substances being illegal is that it limits the amount of research that can actually be done.
Some patients need help NOW. They're on the brink of suicide and antidepressants won't help them since they take weeks to even take effect. MDMA can help very quickly and might be able to keep the person off antidepressants for the rest of their life. Ketamine can be administered straight into the vein and will take affect in less than 5 minutes. With the experimental trials that have been conducted, some patients have been perfectly happy for the remainder of their life without ever needing another treatment. A common stigma around these drugs is that since they're illegal, they must be bad. That's just not the case. In fact, when in a controlled environment, they can only be beneficial.
There's so much that can be said about this and I'd be happy to talk more with anybody about this in the comments.
