The Most Often Used Psychedelic
The 1960s: LSD. The 1990s: MDMA. Today, fittingly, its magic mushrooms. What could a mushroom market look like?
Psilocybin, the active ingredient in hallucinogenic mushrooms, is the psychedelic substance most often used today in the U.S., outpacing the likes of ketamine, MDMA (ecstasy), and LSD.
A new survey by researchers at RAND found that about 12 percent of respondents reported using psilocybin at some point over their lives, and 3.1 percent reported using the substance over the past year. About 7.6 percent said they've taken MDMA during their lifetime.
The researchers estimate that roughly 8 million American adults used psilocybin in 2023. Among those who used psilocybin in past year, 47 percent reported microdosing the last time they used.
Psychedelic substances are increasingly the subject of intense clinical study and investment, often backed by venture capital, hoping to unlock treatments for mental health conditions like PTSD and addiction. On this front, an FDA panel voted down MDMA therapy for PTSD, a major blow to hopes that decades of prohibition would give way to a more therapeutic framework for psychdelics.
The researchers caution that if efforts to expand the non-clinical supply of psychedelics go off the rails, then it could generate a backlash that may have a chilling effect on research and potential therapeutic uses. It would be the 1960s all over again, when use of psychedelics curdled into a moral panic that cemented decades of prohibition.
As clinical trials and venture capital keep hopes of psychedelic expansion alive, there’s millions of people are already using them for recreational and therapeutic purposes (two categories, of course, that are majorly fluid). In today’s wellness culture promoting all things homegrown and “organic,” it’s little suprise that psilocybin mushrooms are most widely used and that consumers may be hesitant to use synthetic compounds like MDMA and LSD.
With state and local officials already relaxing regulations and laws governing psychedelics, and with millions of people already using psychedelics despite prohibition, the RAND report urges federal action. The report proposes various types of regulatory schemes and markets, from legal commercial sales (the profit maximizing model a la cannabis) to membership only co-op strategies.
“The current situation with psychedelics reminds me of where we were with cannabis policy 12 years ago” Beau Kilmer, lead author of the report and a senior policy researcher at RAND, said in a press release. “Now is the time for federal policymakers to decide if they want to shape these policy changes or stay on the sidelines.”
Delaying federal action could have serious consequences. Once companies see growth in profit, they deploy lobbyists to maintain their market share and pass laws and regulations to protect their bottom line, often at the expense of conusmer protection and public health.
We’ve seen this play out with alcohol, tobacco, and most recently, cannabis. To be sure, psychedelics are a very different class of drug with unique consumption patterns and habits that may produce a different sort of regualtory and market structure.
Unlike cannabis, alcohol, and tobacco, those who use psychedelics tend to do so infrequently. The survey found that 0.9 percent of respondents reported using psilocybin during the past month, compared to 20 percent of respondents reporting cannabis use during the past month. And unlike cannabis where consumers are seeking high THC concentrations, nearly half of psilocybin consumers reported microdosing (1/10th to 1/20th of a normal dose).
To me, that sounds like an exciting opportunity for America to try and calibrate a drug market somewhere in the middle between prohibition and commercialization. For so many years, drug policy has felt trapped in this false dichotomy: either lock everyone up who uses illicit substances or break the chains of prohibition unleash lprofit maximizing markets with little regulation and consumer safegaurds.
So far, when it comes to shaping a drug market with consumer protection and safety in mind, America is batting close to zero. Here’s to hoping psychedelics can chart a different path.
great blog!