“People are more scared of dying than they are of using drugs”

A friend sent me a link to an interesting article about an old, long-demonized drug:

“First LSD Study in 40 Years Shows Promising Medical Uses“

According to the study, the drug helps ease the anxiety of terminally ill people.

Picking up where the medical community left off in the ’60s, scientists recently investigated the effects of LSD-assisted therapy on 12 terminally ill patients approaching death. The findings of this controlled study, published Tuesday in thepeer-reviewed Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, showed that LSD paired with psychotherapy alleviated end-of-life anxiety in patients suffering from terminal illnesses.

Conducted in Switzerland, where scientist Albert Hoffman first synthesized LSD in 1938, the study separated the 12 patients into two groups that underwent two preparatory therapy sessions before being administered LSD. For the trial, patients stopped taking any anti-anxiety or antidepressant medications and avoided alcohol for 24 hours prior to the study. One group was administered 200 micrograms of LSD and the other group 20 micrograms (a barely noticeable dosing). Each individual underwent two dosing sessions separated by a few weeks and were assisted by therapists, who walked them through their experiences with the psychedelic’s effects. No prolonged negative effects of the drug were reported.

The low-dosage group reported that their anxiety got worse, while the higher-dosage group said their drug-therapy sessions had profound positive effects on their anxiety — a clinical indication that psychedelic therapy may have potential as a medical treatment. In follow-up sessions, patients reported their reduced anxiety levels were maintained.

“People are more scared of dying than they are of using drugs…

Imagine that.

Of course, does anyone imagine that doctors might be able to provide LSD to help dying patients? Hell no! LSD is a Schedule I drug, which means it is unavailable even to physicians.

And as we all know, doctors are more scared of the DEA than their dying patients are of using drugs.

In this and in many other areas, doctors have long since lost what was once a sacrosanct right to provide whatever treatment they deemed in the best medical interest of their patients.  Perhaps “right” is the wrong word there. It used to be a duty, a sort of moral obligation for doctors to treat patients to the best of their ability.

Today, medical judgment must yield to arbitrary and unconstitutional laws enforced by armed state apparatchiks.