To the Editor:
I am not a member of the addiction community, so my opinions here are sure to be misinformed or mistaken. Nonetheless, it is my perception that the Suboxone debate is the latest iteration of the shameful and godforsaken methadone debacle.
Has anyone here read Michael Pollan’s Feb. 9, 2015, New Yorker piece, “The Trip Treatment,” about the therapeutic uses of LSD in cancer patients’ treatment? I could not fail to be interested in the Pollan article’s mention of LSD’s uses additionally in the seemingly successful treatment of addictions. The striking difference is that the supervised LSD therapy is a onetime intervention.
I would think that our health and addiction professionals would be highly motivated to find alternatives, and more successful ones at that, to the flawed methadone/Suboxone model, which exchanges one addictive substance for another, insuring a continuing income stream up and down the line, while doing little for the lives of addicts, their families, and their communities.
Come to think of it, perhaps that has something to do with our having heard so little about LSD therapy for addiction; but we could change that. Our Island community, so hard hit with addiction tragedies and grief, could be one that steps forward to investigate this further, with a meaningful trial.
Abigail Higgins
West Tisbury