Why Drugs Can Be So Appealing to Some People. The self-medication theory of addiction emphasizes that psychological pain is at the heart of addictive behavior and that vulnerable individuals resort to their addiction because they discover that the addictive substance/behavior provides short-term relief and comfort from their suffering (Khantzian, 2018).
The theory implies that addiction problems are less about pursuing pleasure than they are about seeking relief from painful feelings. Long-term, addiction becomes an end in itself. Recent years have seen the rise in promising data from academic labs concerning the therapeutic potential of a variety of psychedelic substances in treating anxiety and depression.¹⁻³ However, positive results from academic settings are not sufficient to allow commercialization of potential treatments.
For this, a drug must pass a stringent and lengthy regulatory process before it can be administered on a large scale to its intended market. The Regulatory Process In the US, the drug development pipeline consists of a preclinical and clinical phase, which in total can last 12 years and cost upwards of $2 billion (Figure1).⁴ Preclinical phases take place in animal models and serve to determine the appropriate dose for first in man studies, whereas the clinical phase takes place in human cohorts. Everything We Think We Know About Addiction Is Wrong.
Mental Health. How to Use Drugs.