113: Placebo Effect

Note that I switched "set" and "setting" when recording this episode and didn't realize it until after production. Set is you: your biology, your beliefs, your past experiences. Setting is where you take a drug: the casino versus the forest. What we experience when we take a drug has little to do with what the drug does to us biologically. That might sound like an incredible claim, but the evidence bears it out.  Since the first laws restricting the sale, possession and/or use of drugs in the United States, a consistent pattern has reoccurred. First a drug is heralded as the next great breakthrough and a cure to all sorts of illnesses and disorders. The hype leads to a massive increase in use, lining the pockets of manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies. As more people take the wonder drug, more horror stories begin to emerge, causing many to reconsider the efficacy and safety of the drug. Next the drug is stigmatized, or even outlawed outright, closing legal channels of access and thereby contaminating street supplies. At this point, the people who can't take the drug anymore want a replacement, so the pharmaceutical development firms work to establish a new version of the old drug--a safer, better version they can sell once again. When they find it, the same promises are made, the same pockets are lined, and the same process of stigmatization and outlawing follows. Wash, rinse, repeat. Set and setting have everything to do with why everyone experiences every drug differently than everyone else. But our current pharmacological model doesn't leave space for us to think about drugs like that. Instead, pharma sells products with blanket statements that paint all drug users as the same. For more about what Richard DeGrandpre calls, "the cult of pharmacology," check out his work: "Constructing the Pharmacological: A Century in Review"For news reports as early as May 9, 1991 regarding Prozac's dangers, check out the linked ABS News special. Music by Aleksey Chistilin from PixabaySupport the show