Health & Medicine
No Link Found Between Psychedelics And Mental Health Problems
Kathleen Lees
First Posted: Mar 05, 2015 09:55 PM EST
Psychedelics have gained quite the negative reputation over the years. The illegal substances have even been linked to an increased risk of certain mental illnesses.
Now, the results of survey findings published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology dispel these myths. The new information is based on an analysis of information from more than 135,000 randomly chosen people, including 19,000 people who had used psychedelics.
Clinical psychologist Pål-&Ostroke;rjan Johansen (https://www.EmmaSofia.org) and neuroscientist Teri Krebs (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) used data from the US National Health Survey (2008-2011) to study the relationship between psychedelic drug use and psychological distress, depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, plans, and attempts, in which they found no link.
They also looked at data from 2001-2004 and failed to find evidence for a link between psychedelic use and mental health problems.
"Over 30 million US adults have tried psychedelics and there just is not much evidence of health problems," said Johansen.
"Drug experts consistently rank LSD and psilocybin mushrooms as much less harmful to the individual user and to society compared to alcohol and other controlled substances," Krebbs added, noting that psychedlics are not addictive.
The esearchers even went as so far to say that the use of psychedlic drugs were linked to fewer mental heath issues.
In fact, previous findings published in the Nature magainze this year noted that MDMA, psilocybin and other related substances in controlled clinical settings under close medical supervision could be used to treat depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), cases of bipolar disorder, etc.
"Many people report deeply meaningful experiences and lasting beneficial effects from using psychedelics," said Krebs. However, "Given the design of our study, we cannot exclude the possibility that use of psychedelics might have a negative effect on mental health for some individuals or groups, perhaps counterbalanced at a population level by a positive effect on mental health in others," added Johansen.
However, skeptics of the study may note back to "acid casualties," according to Scientific American, which are rooted back as far as the 1960s. However, Krebs noted that many mistake correlation for causation.
"Psychedelics are psychologically intense, and many people will blame anything that happens for the rest of their lives on a psychedelic experience," referring back to high acid use during the time period and relative prevalence of psychiatric disorders, in general.
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First Posted: Mar 05, 2015 09:55 PM EST
Psychedelics have gained quite the negative reputation over the years. The illegal substances have even been linked to an increased risk of certain mental illnesses.
Now, the results of survey findings published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology dispel these myths. The new information is based on an analysis of information from more than 135,000 randomly chosen people, including 19,000 people who had used psychedelics.
Clinical psychologist Pål-&Ostroke;rjan Johansen (https://www.EmmaSofia.org) and neuroscientist Teri Krebs (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) used data from the US National Health Survey (2008-2011) to study the relationship between psychedelic drug use and psychological distress, depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, plans, and attempts, in which they found no link.
They also looked at data from 2001-2004 and failed to find evidence for a link between psychedelic use and mental health problems.
"Over 30 million US adults have tried psychedelics and there just is not much evidence of health problems," said Johansen.
"Drug experts consistently rank LSD and psilocybin mushrooms as much less harmful to the individual user and to society compared to alcohol and other controlled substances," Krebbs added, noting that psychedlics are not addictive.
The esearchers even went as so far to say that the use of psychedlic drugs were linked to fewer mental heath issues.
In fact, previous findings published in the Nature magainze this year noted that MDMA, psilocybin and other related substances in controlled clinical settings under close medical supervision could be used to treat depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), cases of bipolar disorder, etc.
"Many people report deeply meaningful experiences and lasting beneficial effects from using psychedelics," said Krebs. However, "Given the design of our study, we cannot exclude the possibility that use of psychedelics might have a negative effect on mental health for some individuals or groups, perhaps counterbalanced at a population level by a positive effect on mental health in others," added Johansen.
However, skeptics of the study may note back to "acid casualties," according to Scientific American, which are rooted back as far as the 1960s. However, Krebs noted that many mistake correlation for causation.
"Psychedelics are psychologically intense, and many people will blame anything that happens for the rest of their lives on a psychedelic experience," referring back to high acid use during the time period and relative prevalence of psychiatric disorders, in general.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone