Do Psychedelics Drive You Crazy Or Keep You Sane?
Psychedelic drugs such as LSD, psilocybin (found in “magic mushrooms”), and mescaline (the active ingredient in peyote) were once called “psychotomimetic” because they were said to simulate the symptoms of schizophrenia. At first that purported quality inspired hope that psychedelics would help scientists understand the roots of mental illness. But after these drugs escaped from the lab in the 1960s, their reputation as “insanity chemicals” inspired fear that they would drive people crazy, maybe for good. That fear, in turn, inspired scare stories about acid droppers who fell to their deaths after trying to fly, tore out their own eyeballs, or stared at the sun until they went blind.
The psychotomimetic slur continues to influence public policy, as reflected in the fact that LSD et al. are still prohibited in virtually all circumstances by laws that prescribe severe penalties for suppliers. A study published this month in the Journal of Psychopharmacology casts further doubt on the rationality of that policy, finding no association between psychedelic use and psychological problems.
(Image: Foundation for a Drug-Free World)
The researchers—neuroscientist Teri Krebs and clinical psychologist Pål-Ørjan Johansen, both based in Norway—looked at four years of data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). The pooled sample consisted of responses from 135,000 American adults, including more than 19,000 psychedelic users. “After adjusting for sociodemographics, other drug use and childhood depression,” Krebs and Johansen report, “we found no significant associations between lifetime use of psychedelics and increased likelihood of past year serious psychological distress, mental health treatment, suicidal thoughts, suicidal plans and suicide attempt, depression and anxiety.”
In fact, there was a hint that psychedelics might be conducive to psychological health. Psychedelic users had “a lower likelihood of past year inpatient mental health treatment,” a difference that was fairly small but statistically significant. Although causal relationships cannot be proven by cross-sectional studies like this one, Krebs and Johansen note that a positive effect is plausible (citations omitted):
Our results might reflect beneficial effects of psychedelic use, relatively better initial mental health among people who use psychedelics or chance “false positive” findings. However, it is well documented that psychedelics elicit spiritual experiences. Indeed, long-term psychological benefits have been reported in several clinical trials of LSD, for example, “About half of the total sample felt they had achieved more understanding and acceptance of themselves and a broader tolerance of the view points of others via the LSD experience.” In a recent randomized controlled trial of psilocybin, most of the participants (67%) regarded the experience as one of the most personally significant moments in their lives (comparable to the birth of a first child) and, furthermore, most of the participants (64%) reported improved well-being or life satisfaction 14 months later. People often report long-term benefits from LSD use. No serious adverse events have been reported in recent randomized controlled trials of psilocybin, demonstrating that psychedelics can be administered safely in medical contexts. Case-control and longitudinal studies have not found evidence of increased mental health problems among people who have used traditional psychedelics (peyote or ayahuasca) hundreds of times in legally recognized religious ceremonies.
Krebs and Johansen also question the notion that psychedelics cause “flashbacks,” in which people involuntarily re-experience features of a trip long after the drug has left their bodies, or a more recent variation on that theme, “hallucinogen persisting perceptual disorder.” They note that “lifetime use of psychedelics and past year use of LSD was not associated with past year symptoms of visual phenomena (‘seeing something others could not’), panic attacks, psychosis or overall serious psychological distress.”
“Thermodynamic Horizon,” by Adam Scott Miller (Image: MAPS)
The authors also observe that “psychedelics are not known to harm the brain or other body organs or to cause addiction or compulsive use,” and “serious adverse events involving psychedelics are extremely rare.” Hence “it is difficult to see how prohibition of psychedelics can be justified as a public health measure.”
Regardless of whether psychedelics have measurable psychological benefits, the fact that people like to use them shows they have value. Granted, these drugs are not for everyone. According to the NSDUH, the number of Americans who have tried marijuana is more than four times the number who have tried LSD. Still, every year more than 1 million Americans use LSD or other psychedelics. Some of them have profound, life-altering experiences. Others just have fun. Criminalizing these people is hard to justify even based on paternalistic principles, especially given the lack of evidence that psychedelics commonly cause serious harm. For antiprohibitionists who are wondering what comes next after marijuana legalization, this class of drugs seems like a good place to start.
