I think some folks think that not every available treatment modality was tried and there's a possibility that one could have worked so euthanasia was perhaps premature.

How is that handled inside the ethical framework that governs euthanasia? It must be a consideration.

Don’t know why you are being downvoted. Something like described should have been an alternative to at least one of the almost dozen antidepressants.

You do not understand how these drugs work. MDMA is rather similar to certain SSRI in action, if stronger and shorter lived. Which she was already on. Heroinists with depression tend to shoot a final overdose.

The remaining thing to try would be hallucinogens. LSD, psylocibin or perhaps ibogaine. These are different and unpredictable enough to maybe work. And this is a case where, since it is otherwise bad enough, even electroshock therapy could be of value. Since these are way past typical options and probably now banned, they would require special handling.

(Assuming VR therapy and standard CBT have been exhausted. And TMS showed no improvement.)

You’re never going to be able to recreate the combination of factors it takes to get out of depression in a lab. She could have taken some ecstasy, gone to a rave, met someone and completely changed the trajectory of her life. Same with speed- become temporarily manic and do something completely different. Most heroin addicts die from an overdose, you’re underestimating how much an addict looks forward to their next fix, nothing else matters. I’ve seen this anecdotally many times though anecdotal experiences only hold so much weight. At the end of the day what did she have to lose if she was going to be euthanized anyways. People take drugs to deal with problems and this is a problem. Hell, give her a huge dose of ketamine and put her into a massive k hole, people with depression respond fantastically to that.

I would never give hallucinogens to a depressed person, that could be enough hell to break someone’s mind permanently.

> I would never give hallucinogens to a depressed person, that could be enough hell to break someone’s mind permanently.

If the other option is killing them, hallucinogens start to look a lot more reasonable

This sounds extremely foolish to me. There are fates much worse than death and that’s one way to flirt with them.

This is some terrible mental health advice.

First, she claimed to be on 11 antidepressants, I doubt it but I bet she was on a few. ecstasy and many anti-depressants are serotogenic and you'll give her serotonin syndrome. You really don't want to screw with that, there's reports of ecstasy users ended up with permanent depression issues. To lower such risks, you'd want to ween somebody suicidal off anti-d's first to take a drug that's pretty similar to anti-d's in the first place. There's some recent research that shows if you've already done the one you won't benefit as much from the other usually [1] but if you were going to do this I'd taper off some of the anti-d's first.

The idea of taking heroin for mental health so you can go to rehab I think speaks to buying into Hollywood narratives. Hitting rock bottom doesn't help you recover from mental health issues usually, it only makes your mental health worse, look around people who don't have a home and you won't see paragon's of mental health.

[1] https://www.psypost.org/2021/03/previous-antidepressant-use-...

I don’t think you have the nuance to understand what I’m trying to say. Yes, some heroin addicts may be on the street but they still have a desire to live and get their next hit. It’s not about “hitting rock bottom”, it’s about being able to find a quick and dirty purpose when you wake up everyday.