B.C. doctor told to stop using hallucinogenic tea to help addicts

Thought that was a pretty cool headline and when I followed the link I found a picture of someone I knew. In fact (and I don't think this violates privileged since it's my history) I was a client for a short period way back when.
I did not, however, get anything as fancy as this special tea from him. Mind you, I also wasn't seeing him for addiction - but had I known it might have been worth faking.
And, by the way, I'd vouch for him. He's a decent caring professional person.

that sounds like it's worth investigating

Nor will you get much data without allowing the testing.

However, these chemicals have been used for long time in Shamanism and the rituals are as important as the chemicals. Many maladies of mood and addiction are amenable to psychedelic experiences and ritual. If you can change the mindset with which you approach your problems you can start to see how they may be overcome - and the ritual itself is important - but the chemistry can disarm your natural rational/western scepticism so that your mind is more amenable to the emotional intent.

Depression, for example, can be treated with almost any pill. There is a large placebo effect simply from the idea of receiving treatment - other mental maladies are also influenced by placebo treatments - I say placebo rather than fake because the effect is very real and clinically useful.

Yes, but he is a psychiatrist and that is outside of the tradition. It's also outside of the drug companies tradition too. Testing helps exclude drugs that kill too many people too quickly, but since the placebo effect is so strong in certain psychiatric disorders it also means that dangerous substances that are roughly as effective as placebos get given to patients. Sugar pills would be better medicine but sugar pills have very small mark ups. Industry testing is notoriously slack since profit is such a necessary part of business - tests will lean heavily towards findings of effectiveness and safety. Things would be very different if there were independent testing but who would pay for that?

Yes, but he is a psychiatrist and that is outside of the tradition. It's also outside of the drug companies tradition too. Testing helps exclude drugs that kill too many people too quickly, but since the placebo effect is so strong in certain psychiatric disorders it also means that dangerous substances that are roughly as effective as placebos get given to patients. Sugar pills would be better medicine but sugar pills have very small mark ups. Industry testing is notoriously slack since profit is such a necessary part of business - tests will lean heavily towards findings of effectiveness and safety. Things would be very different if there were independent testing but who would pay for that?

It's an interesting thing he's doing. However, here's the thing - even if he's getting good results, there's a good chance it only works on people who already believe it will work. Yes, the placebo effect. My point is, this treatment may not be a universal treatment, skeptics will likely not benefit from it at all. With that in mind we must also then consider the fact that if THIS doctor is allowed to use it, then so shall other doctors. That effectively opens up a can of worms since there are no official guidelines for the drugs use. Part of the testing that goes on for pharmaceutical drugs is to come up with usage guidelines. Without that, you can have dosages that are off the chart, the ritual component may vary greatly or be eliminated completely. And if this guy ever gets onto Oprah/DrOz/DrPhil then every quack Dr will want to cash in on it regardless of actual results.

Should, but as I said, it's not in the tradition - psychiatry came from a very hand-wavy background. I know in the last few decades it's turned into a very prescribe happy field but chemical psychiatry is fairly new - and since we don't really understand all the things the brain can do for itself to change the way it responds it remains very difficult to figure out what part of drug changes are due to belief in treatment and what is due to the drugs. Drug companies like to interpret the results in favour of their patent medicines and many psychiatrists are happy to take the commissions from moving the drugs. I've met some who are really nothing but pushers.

Coincidentally in the last couple of days I have finished reading the "Heal Thyself" article in the August 27th edition of New Scientist (I am well behind in my reading) and they talk about studies in which the placebo works even when you tell the patient that it is a placebo, provided you tell them why you expect it to work.
There is also a sidebar in the same issue about how use of psychedelics have been shown to elevate mood in terminal cancer patients and how the new perspective acquired has given people the ability to change their lives and their outlooks.
Here is a small new scientist video with an overview of the article.
http://bcove.me/gzpfqvvt

Unfortunately, while it can be an improvement, pharma companies have become big enough to significantly influence the outcome of such testing. People who don't get the right results get fired from government almost as easily as they get fired from private companies and threats and bribes still work.

Psychiatrists have all the prestige and money (which they use to maintain their prestige) but the psychologists have the better science, in my opinion.

Profit motive can change the outcome of a study. Often does.

Sorry if I was a little terse on the psychedelics/cancer patients thing. I didn't mean to leave the impression that the elevated mood improved outcomes in that study. The patients still died but they lived the last part of their life with less anxiety and a more positive outlook. They were able to enjoy more and find more meaning in their last days. However, other studies with psychedelics have found that the experiences can have profound effects on how patients view their lives and their conditions which can open the door to therapy.
A lot of the time modern psychiatric medicine is devoted to prescribing and then maintaining on the theory that the condition needs lifelong management with medication. This overlooks the plasticity of the mind and sometimes continuing medication merely masks the problem leaving the underlying problem untreated. Therapy techniques can lead to big changes in personality disorders by retraining the way a persons brain responds to situations but they take a couple of years and there is much better money to be had writing prescriptions. Prescribing is quick and you can pack a lot more clients into you day that way.

They are not happy pills. You take the pills, you have an experience, the experience changes your outlook - you don't take the pills any more.

And in the case of Matte the tea is an adjunct to traditional talk therapy - it just gives the patient a new perspective on their situation - material for them to work on their problem with the therapist.

That's true, but selling snake oil to people who have nothing can help. Just helping helps, and we already know that.

woo woo tea works on everyone. It has real effects. However, the effects aren't the therapy, they facilitate the therapy by giving the patient a new perspective based on a real experience that they have taking the tea.

The dosing protocol has centuries of history.

Understood, and I thought I made that clear in my original post. You seem to be focusing too much on this one Dr, the main point of my post was that if this Dr does it, others will follow but perhaps without the complete treatment regimen. Or even worse, people will just order the tea without even bothering to see any specialist at all. By putting it through proper testing, an actual guideline can be made and taught to medical students as well - assuming it's effective.

Are you suggesting that some drugs do not need to be put through a rigorous clinic trial? I think "centuries of history" simply doesn't cut it in the modern world of medicine. I have no issues with this "Amazon tea" being tested both for effectiveness and safety. Not sure why you seem to resist that. Part of the problem here is that you can't get this tea from a pharmacy or grocery store. You're getting it from shady people because it's a controlled substance - and I have a huge list of problems just with that. I think a proper trial may open the door for proper distribution for this tea. Of course, if this drug turns out not to be effective or safe, then this Dr is doing nothing more then turning meth addicts into Amazon tea addicts - which you could argue is an improvement, but far from the cure it's labelled as.

1. Tell me when you get there.
2. Tell me when someone you love gets there.

It is NOT a controlled substance per se. You get to be controlled by getting on a list - that's the way the law works and that's why there are so many designer drugs - it's to get around the list. The issue is that a) it is a legal gray area, b) it may become a controlled drug, c) nobody wants it to be a useful protocol in case they want to turn it into a controlled drug, d) it doesn't fit with the current governments fundy attitude towards chemicals and morality.

It isn't the transference of addiction because the tea isn't prescribed as an ongoing medication but a one or two time thing as an adjunct to traditional talk therapy.