Young people are increasingly embracing the use of psychedelic “magic” mushrooms which are gaining increased social acceptance at a time when America is dealing with a national drug addiction crisis, a troubling sign of today’s twisted times.
The rising popularity of psilocybin among young adults was detailed in a new study by the University of Michigan and Columbia University in which researchers found that in 2021, 6.6 percent of people aged 19 to 30 have nearly doubled their use of non-LSD hallucinogenics over the last three years, up from 3.4 percent in 2018.
The alarming trend comes as marijuana has been legalized in nearly half the country and several Democrat-controlled states have decriminalized the long-illegal mind-altering substance as it continues to become more socially acceptable for the treatment of various maladies including depression.
“While non-LSD hallucinogen use remains substantially less prevalent than use of substances such as alcohol and cannabis, a doubling of prevalence in just three years is a dramatic increase and raises possible public health concerns,” said the study’s co-author Megan Patrick who is a co-principle investigator of the Monitoring the Future project at the University of Michigan. “The increase in non-LSD hallucinogen use occurred while LSD use remained stable at around 4% in 2018 and 2021.”
“It’s really difficult to explain these trends,” she added. “We have some guesses, but we don’t really know yet.”
The results of the study were published in the journal Addiction. Monitoring the Future describes its work as “an ongoing study of the behaviors, attitudes, and values of Americans from adolescence through adulthood.”
“While Monitoring the Future does not identify whether young adults were using these drugs recreationally or because they believed their use to be of therapeutic benefit, previous research has shown that nonmedical hallucinogen use is associated with risks of substance use disorders, injury including self-harm and anxiety, according to the study,” the University of Michigan states in a news release on the study.
Media has been reporting on the growing use of “magic” mushrooms for the treatment of depression and psychedelics are already on the verge of becoming a boom industry as options to more traditional forms of medicine are becoming increasingly popular.
(Video: YouTube/CBS New York)
Psychedelic mushrooms also have support on Capitol Hill with Democrat Senator John Fetterman – who recently underwent treatment for clinical depression – expressing his view that they have been used to help veterans.
“I’ve been an advocate of psychedelics in terms of the magic mushrooms for PSTDs and for veterans especially, and I always thought, what an amaz… and I thought… and it could be… maybe I’m wrong, an amazing economic kind of boom for the mushroom…, he said during a recent Senate Agriculture subcommittee hearing.
“The use of psychedelic and hallucinogenic drugs for a range of therapeutic uses is increasing, given accumulating yet still preliminary data from randomized trials on clinical effectiveness,” said Columbia Mailman School professor of epidemiology Katherine Keyes, the study’s lead author. “With increased visibility for medical and therapeutic use, however, potentially comes diversion and unregulated product availability, as well as a lack of understanding among the public of potential risks.”
“The use of hallucinogens other than LSD, such as psilocybin in so-called ‘shrooms,’ has increased among young adults in the U.S. This is a rising concern for young adult health,” said Patrick. “We will continue to track these trends to see if the increases continue. We need additional research, including about the motives for hallucinogen use and how young adults are using these substances, in order to be able to mitigate the associated negative consequences.”
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