To the people illegally micro-dosing: Why would you open yourself up to the liability of committing a felony crime for a placebo effect? The risk vs reward doesn’t seem to pan out for me.
Only in some US states is possession for personal use a felony. In some it is a misdemeanor or an infraction. In some legal jurisdictions these drugs are perfectly legal and are sold at retail.
My only parent, my mother, gave me only one rule that I had to live by. I had to abide by the law, no matter what it was or if I disagreed with it. She simply just did not want me to spend my life in jail and assured me that I would feel the same way by telling me how terrible jail is (which I did).
I say this because I sympathize with your standpoint. I could have written your comment in a past life.
In short, I would ask that you empathize with the concept that one's belief might exist outside the law.
A little more to say... the variables at play here have a wide range of interpretation on a personal level. I infer from your comment that you perceive the risk to be high. I perceived my risk associated with microdosing, including the risk of being shipped to prison, to be low.
Before microdosing, I had undergone a macrodose. That macrodosing session was a positive for me. As such, the reward and exploration of a microdose was enticing enough for me to try it.
I don’t have statistics to back this up, and it could be a reflection of the privilege of my social group.
As this study shows, that hype might actually explain some of the effect. People primed to think they were microdosing claimed to feel significant improvements, even when receiving placebo.