Thanks for doing this. I found the way you’d quantified the treatment benefits very useful.
Two sets of comments:
1
I would have found it very helpful if you’d explained the context of the intervention. Some questions that sprung to mind:
what are ballot initiatives in Calfornia and how do they work? is this to raise funds to put this up for a vote? If so, what are the costs involved and why do they vary? Is this to put this to put it up for a vote and campaign for it? Something else?
What exactly do you mean by ‘drug liberalisation’? Changing the medical laws, the recreational ones? If so, in what way? I understand you want to be ‘agnostic’ on the details, but I’d say you’re closer to being ‘vague’ as I’m really not sure what you have in mind. Another way of being agnostic would be to say “there are options A to F of how this could work in practice, we don’t know which is best and it would/wouldn’t change the model for these reasons”
2
I’d also have found it helpful if you’d explained what you’re doing at the various steps of the model and why. I assume that anyone, such as myself, interested to look through the model would also read a text explanation and this would aid comprehension. Important counterfactuals to consider seem to be:
-How many years of benefit there are before this happens anyway. Your answers were 2, 5 and 10 years. Could you explain your thinking there and what it’s sensitive to?
-Why did you model the effect just in California? I think most of the benefit of something like this is that it would speed up drug reform around the world, i.e. what California does today, the world does tomorrow. It would be good to have something, even vague, on how much better this looks if we include a domino effect.
-You state this would need $6m, $14m or $38m in funding. In addition to knowing exactly what that is funding for, I’d want to know about the expected value at different sums raised. i.e. if I can just scrap together $100k, am I right in thinking this is a waste of time? If that’s true, that changes who the relevant audience is and it would only be major funders.
-You mention depression but not, as far as I can see, anxiety. Is there a reason for that?
-Are you assuming the people who would be treated with psychedelics wouldn’t otherwise receive treatment? What are you assuming here?
I might have other things, but that’s probably enough for now.
Thanks for doing this. I found the way you’d quantified the treatment benefits very useful.
Two sets of comments:
1
I would have found it very helpful if you’d explained the context of the intervention. Some questions that sprung to mind:
what are ballot initiatives in Calfornia and how do they work? is this to raise funds to put this up for a vote? If so, what are the costs involved and why do they vary? Is this to put this to put it up for a vote and campaign for it? Something else?
What exactly do you mean by ‘drug liberalisation’? Changing the medical laws, the recreational ones? If so, in what way? I understand you want to be ‘agnostic’ on the details, but I’d say you’re closer to being ‘vague’ as I’m really not sure what you have in mind. Another way of being agnostic would be to say “there are options A to F of how this could work in practice, we don’t know which is best and it would/wouldn’t change the model for these reasons”
2
I’d also have found it helpful if you’d explained what you’re doing at the various steps of the model and why. I assume that anyone, such as myself, interested to look through the model would also read a text explanation and this would aid comprehension. Important counterfactuals to consider seem to be:
-How many years of benefit there are before this happens anyway. Your answers were 2, 5 and 10 years. Could you explain your thinking there and what it’s sensitive to?
-Why did you model the effect just in California? I think most of the benefit of something like this is that it would speed up drug reform around the world, i.e. what California does today, the world does tomorrow. It would be good to have something, even vague, on how much better this looks if we include a domino effect.
-You state this would need $6m, $14m or $38m in funding. In addition to knowing exactly what that is funding for, I’d want to know about the expected value at different sums raised. i.e. if I can just scrap together $100k, am I right in thinking this is a waste of time? If that’s true, that changes who the relevant audience is and it would only be major funders.
-You mention depression but not, as far as I can see, anxiety. Is there a reason for that?
-Are you assuming the people who would be treated with psychedelics wouldn’t otherwise receive treatment? What are you assuming here?
I might have other things, but that’s probably enough for now.