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> these substances by nature cannot be double-blind trialed because blinding is impossible

That's a bold claim. You can try multiple different substances, the test subjects know they ingest a psychedelic, but don't know which, which allows you to have a control group.

Clinical trials would face other issues, but not this one.

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i think it would be super interesting to do a study where we compared the effects of moderate/high-dose psychedelics to some other substance that had comparable subjective effects. but (a) i don't think such a control substance actually exists and (b) i strongly suspect that you'd see the same benefits to both groups - and then what conclusion do you draw from that?

You run into another problem here: those other psychedelics may also cause the same changes.

It still might be worth trying though, if it can be done ethically. It's not a perfect test, but it's halfway decent?

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