> You keep ignoring the fact that what you just said applies to current medications used to treat depression and anxiety. They do not treat the underlying issue long-term

Those do cause improvement in self-reported feelings long term, i.e. they lower the baseline levels over a long period of time, rather than just for a short period right after you take the drug.

But you'd be right to say that they're not very good, i.e. that doesn't help your life very much. If there's an actual underlying cause, like sleep apnea, treating that will help a lot more.

Ketamine is a harder case, it really does cause improvement, but it lasts about two weeks. It also can cause psychosis, which is very dangerous. The s-ketamine the FDA approved for use in treatments is also via an inhaler, so it's both purer and via a different route than other a lot of other ketamine usage and it was approved because it actually showed a measurable effect in studies.

But it's really awful to use and if you find out that, say, sleep apnea was actually causing the issues, treating that will do a lot more good than inhaling s-ketamine ever did.

As you may have inferred, I write this based on personal experience.