MAPS: Ketamine research articles

[RickMAPS@xxxxxxx]

To Forum readers:

The following is a letter to the editor I've just sent to the Boston Globe,
where the initial article about ketamine research appeared on December
31,1998. A slightly different AP wire story was sent to newspapers around the
country.  I'll let the Forum know if the letter is actually printed.



To the Editor:

	Your article on ketamine research (Dec. 31,1998 page 1), and the ethicists
who were quoted as stating that  ?there is no possibility that healthy people
will achieve any benefit to offset the risk of harm,?  overlooked some crucial
but easy to miss facts.  First, the ketamine experience can offer research
subjects valuable psychological insights and experiences much like dream
states or near death experiences, to which the ketamine experience has been
frequently compared. In the side bar to the article, one subject was reported
to have  described  a mystical experience, which most cultures throughout
history and even a growing number of scientists consider of substantial
psychological value.  Even the non-medical self-administration of ketamine
suggests that some healthy people find some benefit in ketamine experiences,
if only recreational. Second, there is absolutely no evidence that exposure to
ketamine or LSD in a carefully controlled research study leads to addiction to
either substance. Far from producing addiction in research subjects, ketamine
has been used with some success in Russia as an adjunct to psychotherapy in
the treatment of alcoholics and heroin addicts (see http://www. maps.org  for
more details).   
	Ketamine research is not inherently harmful to healthy subjects and offers
scientists a unique and important window into the mind and brain.  Research
should proceed with all due caution and comprehensive and accurate informed
consent forms, a practice that your articles have certainly encouraged.
Nevertheless, consent forms should not raise concerns about risks that are out
of proportion with the actual risks of participating in a research study.

Sincerely yours,

Rick Doblin
Public Policy Ph.D candidate 
Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
and (if there is room)
President, Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)


------------------
MAPS-Forum@xxxxxxxx, a member service of the Multidisciplinary Association
for Psychedelic Studies (to become a member, see www.maps.org/memsub.html).
To [un]subscribe, email the message text,
[un]subscribe maps-forum youraddress to majordomo@xxxxxxxx