Study: use of psychedelics not related to mental health problems
Krebs and Johansen, researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's (NTNU) Department of Neuroscience poured through data from a US national health survey to evaluate the association between the lifetime use of psychedelics and current mental health.
The conclusion of the study? There is no correlation between the use of the psychedelics LSD, psilocybin or mescaline and the risk of mental health problems. In fact, the researchers found evidence of psychedelic use lowering the rate of these problems.
Data was drawn from just over 130.000 adult respondents of the US National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Using any of the substances LSD, psilocybin, mescaline or peyote (we don’t really know why peyote was looked at separately) at least once counted as lifetime use, which was almost 22.000 respondents in total.
"Everything has some potential for negative effects, but psychedelic use is overall considered to pose a very low risk to the individual and to society," Johansen says, "Psychedelics can elicit temporary feelings of anxiety and confusion, but accidents leading to serious injury are extremely rare."
LSD and psilocybin are consistently ranked in expert assessments as causing less harm to both individual users and society than alcohol, tobacco, and most other common recreational drugs.
Sources
Psychedelics and Mental Health: A Population Study
LSD and Other Psychedelics Not Linked With Mental Health Problems, Analysis Suggests
