>I think the consideration that an article like this misses is the unintended consequences of speeding a process up / reducing the criteria for review, approval, etc.
In general I feel like the sick should not be held responsible for the unintended consequences of things. The principle that it is better for 10 guilty men to go free than 1 innocent man to be punished applies here as well. How many suicides have happened because it took this long for the use of psychedelics and THC for the treatment of depression and PTSD to be approved (partially, in some places). How many people are suffering today, right now in pain or under the care of doctors they would otherwise leave for poor treatment but the "opioid crisis" has limited their access to the treatments they need? I've faced this problem personally more than once, and while I am sympathetic to the law of unintended consequences, I just can't be convinced that it is the duty of myself or my loved ones to suffer because someone else might abuse something. There is a balancing act to be had for sure, but any borderline case should ALWAYS err on the side of reducing the current actual harm in favor of preventing a nebulous potential future harm.
In general I feel like the sick should not be held responsible for the unintended consequences of things. The principle that it is better for 10 guilty men to go free than 1 innocent man to be punished applies here as well. How many suicides have happened because it took this long for the use of psychedelics and THC for the treatment of depression and PTSD to be approved (partially, in some places). How many people are suffering today, right now in pain or under the care of doctors they would otherwise leave for poor treatment but the "opioid crisis" has limited their access to the treatments they need? I've faced this problem personally more than once, and while I am sympathetic to the law of unintended consequences, I just can't be convinced that it is the duty of myself or my loved ones to suffer because someone else might abuse something. There is a balancing act to be had for sure, but any borderline case should ALWAYS err on the side of reducing the current actual harm in favor of preventing a nebulous potential future harm.