I finally cracked open The Man Who Tasted Words and I'd love to talk about the main themes but Mr. Guy Leschnizer almost offhandedly makes the claim in chapter 1 that if you take some people with confirmed placebo effect, ie people you have confirmed are reacting as if it were [drug] when you give them sugar pills... and then dose them with naloxone, an opiate reverser... they will stop reacting to the sugar pills as if they were [drug].
I'd always heard the placebo effect phrased as if it was purely psychological, but apparently it has an actual chemical/physical component. Meat is whack.