Hello God. Thank you for your critique. If you are interested, I have replies.
1. The study is qualitative in the sense that it aims to explore the users' own perceptions of how drugs affect them and their lives. It does not aim to "prove" anything, which is normal for qualitative studies. It is possible that people lie, which is possible in every kind of study where people are asked to provide information. As far as this is a problem, it is probably less so for a qualitative interview study where people have to invest some time to take part.
2. Users are anonymous to me. They are probably not anonymous to the NSA, which applies also to posts at this forum. Unless, perhaps, they use Tor, which some do. The NSA is after many things, but my analysis would be that they are not greatly concerned with people who describe their own experiences with illegal drugs. The opposite would be problematic for the existence of this forum to the exact same extent that it is problematic for participation in my study. We can debate how secure Tor is, but US law does not as far as I know explicitly forbid anonymity.
3. People can claim to be depressed without being clinically depressed. My concern is with how people experience their lives after using entheogens, so the matter is not of primary concern to me.
4. As you say, it is very hard to identify the "real" cause(s) as to why problems go away - especially when it happens over a long period of time. People that I talk to often say so themselves, but sometimes have a feeling that the entheogens were helpful and can describe why that is so. This is useful information, even if it is not of medical value. Before we get to the point where we can perform large and expensive medical tests of the therapeutic value of entheogenic drugs, we need (I believe) to gather and analyse people's own perceptions of what is happening to them. It is my modest aim to contribute towards this.
5. Some people experience spontaneous healing. If this happens in connection with the use of entheogenic drugs, that is important information even if does not "prove" anything. The philosopher of science Karl Popper would say that nothing is ever exactly proven, but of course it is possible to conduct large-scale studies that will be more reliable than my qualitative study of user experiences. What I am doing is only a beginning, but one that is sadly unprecedented.
6. As above, basically. If people perceive their insight to emerge in connection with their use of entheogens, that information is of value.
7. I do not believe you are familiar with the tradition of qualitative studies. Words are used in many different ways, and do not have one "true" meaning. Qualitative is in this instance used in relation to "quantitative", and does not imply having a high quality. And according to Søren Kierkegaard, "subjectivity is truth".
8. The extent of IQ is debatable. Quantitative studies generally have the benefit of being representative of a larger population, but they have no opportunity to go into what some have called a "thick description" of how people experience their lives. The value of qualitative studies is basically to gain depth of understanding at the cost of generalizability.
9. Words are used in many different ways. The wikipedia definition of an entheogen "is a chemical substance used in a religious, shamanic, or spiritual context". This broadly covers my interest. According to Ludwig Wittgenstein, "meaning is use" - the meaning of a word is determined by how it is used. I do not believe that I or most people have a sufficient understanding of what "God" or "Oneness" (or whatever word you prefer) is, and your point is basically theological and subject to debate.
10. I am not sure that we do know how placebos work.
11. My point with the phrase "proper use" is only to indicate that there is certainly no guarantee that the use of an entheogenic drug will lead to an entheogenic experience. I do not know what "proper use" might be, and aim to consult the participants of my study to help me discover what use does lead to spiritual experience and what use does not. The former might reasonably be labeled proper in this context: it is "properly entheogenic" in the sense that it does result in what the word entheogenic implies.
12. Saying that something is broadly overlapping with something else does not imply that the two are identical. I believe however that most of the drugs we would normally label entheogenic could also reasonably be labeled hallucinogenic or psychedelic. Feel free to point out the exceptions.
Anyway, your point about how "Entheogenic drugs dont solve problems but they can be used to help one solve ones problems" is broadly in agreement with the views of most of the people I talk to in the context of my study.
If you have further points of critique, feel free to bring them forth.
