Comment Re: It's just a tool I guess (Score 4, Informative) 294
The control group in a drug study would not place someone currently on strong medication onto no medication. That would violate the ethical principle of equipoise. The subjects in the control group wouldn't be given a placebo; that would be horrendously unethical. They would be given either the current gold standard of care or the new drug/procedure being tested. The researchers and subjects would both be blinded to which they were receiving. For instance, an RCT comparing hydrocodone to a new med would have both arms take a new pill, but both pills look identical. One would contain the medication they've been taking and the other would contain the new drug. That's not what the OP is talking about though.
I'm not super experienced in clincal trials, but the study the OP was a part of doesn't sound like a double-blinded RCT; it sounds more like a limited-rollout experimental kind of clinical trial, where certain people are allowed to elect to try out the drug. This is not really a scientific experiment that would have a control group, but a limited opt-in rollout of the drug.