Maybe this is addressed somewhere and I’ve missed it, but “do you use tryptamines to treat your headaches” shouldn’t be a yes/no question—shouldn’t the options be “never tried,” “tried and stopped for some reason” or “yes I use them to treat my headaches”?
It seems like the current framing is going to overrepresent people who find tryptamines helpful, because people who tried them and didn’t find them effective or discontinued due to side effects are currently in the “don’t use tryptamines” category.
That’s a good point, thank you. We should distinguish between lifetime use and current use in future surveys. Perhaps even asking whether “they worked the first time you used them” to see if people who currently use them had a better reaction to their first try relative to those who did try them at some point but do not currently use them.
I would add that other reasons why people might have used them in the past but don’t currently include “can’t access it now”, “too afraid of legal repercussions”, and “social stigma”. While discontinuing them due to side-effects and lack of effectiveness can make them look more effective than they are among the “use them” group, the other reasons for discontinuation do not have this effect. I don’t know what % of past users discontinued for which reason, and that seems like a good thing to find out.
Maybe this is addressed somewhere and I’ve missed it, but “do you use tryptamines to treat your headaches” shouldn’t be a yes/no question—shouldn’t the options be “never tried,” “tried and stopped for some reason” or “yes I use them to treat my headaches”?
It seems like the current framing is going to overrepresent people who find tryptamines helpful, because people who tried them and didn’t find them effective or discontinued due to side effects are currently in the “don’t use tryptamines” category.
That’s a good point, thank you. We should distinguish between lifetime use and current use in future surveys. Perhaps even asking whether “they worked the first time you used them” to see if people who currently use them had a better reaction to their first try relative to those who did try them at some point but do not currently use them.
I would add that other reasons why people might have used them in the past but don’t currently include “can’t access it now”, “too afraid of legal repercussions”, and “social stigma”. While discontinuing them due to side-effects and lack of effectiveness can make them look more effective than they are among the “use them” group, the other reasons for discontinuation do not have this effect. I don’t know what % of past users discontinued for which reason, and that seems like a good thing to find out.