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Psychedelics and Mental Health: A Population Study
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: The classical serotonergic psychedelics LSD, psilocybin, mescaline are not known to cause brain damage and are regarded as non-addictive. Clinical studies do not suggest that psychedelics cause long-term mental health problems. Psychedelics have been used in the Americas for thousands of years. Over 30 million people currently living in the US have used LSD, psilocybin, or mescaline. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the association between the lifetime use of psychedelics and current mental health in the adult population. METHOD: Data drawn from years 2001 to 2004 of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health consisted of 130,152 respondents, randomly selected to be representative of the adult population in the United States. Standardized screening measures for past year mental health included serious psychological distress (K6 scale), mental health treatment (inpatient, outpatient, medication, needed but did not receive), symptoms of eight psychiatric disorders (panic disorder, major depressive episode, mania, social phobia, general anxiety disorder, agoraphobia, posttraumatic stress disorder, and non-affective psychosis), and seven specific symptoms of non-affective psychosis. We calculated weighted odds ratios by multivariate logistic regression controlling for a range of sociodemographic variables, use of illicit drugs, risk taking behavior, and exposure to traumatic events. RESULTS: 21,967 respondents (13.4% weighted) reported lifetime psychedelic use. There were no significant associations between lifetime use of any psychedelics, lifetime use of specific psychedelics (LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, peyote), or past year use of LSD and increased rate of any of the mental health outcomes. Rather, in several cases psychedelic use was associated with lower rate of mental health problems. CONCLUSION: We did not find use of psychedelics to be an independent risk factor for mental health problems.
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“Both interventions have also successfully demonstrated reductions in clinical symptomatology in healthy individuals (65, 66).”
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Metadata
- Authors
- Krebs, T. S., & Johansen, P.-Ø.
- Affiliations
- Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NO)
- Corresponding author
- Krebs, Teri S.
- Venue
- PLoS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2013-08-19
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- e63972
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3747247
- OpenAlex
- W2014761647
- Cited by
- 347
- References
- 58
- Citations by year
- 2026: 24 · 2025: 25 · 2024: 37 · 2023: 53 · 2022: 40 · 2021: 41 · 2020: 17 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 30 · 2017: 19 · 2016: 20 · 2015: 16 · 2014: 6 · 2013: 2
- FWCI
- 16.32
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- NORA - Norwegian Open Research Archives (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Norges Forskningsråd (rcn-foriss-185924)
- Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychedelics and Drug Studies
- Life Sciences › Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics › Toxicology › Forensic Toxicology and Drug Analysis
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Substance Abuse Treatment and Outcomes
- Keywords
- psychedelics, LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, peyote, mental health, serious psychological distress, mental illness, non-affective psychosis, lifetime drug use, risk factors for mental illness, National Survey on Drug Use and Health
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Mental Disorders, Data Collection, Female, Hallucinogens, Humans, Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, Male, Mental Health, Mescaline, Middle Aged, Psilocybin, Risk Factors, United States, Odds Ratio
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