Mushrooms for patient use are shown at a psilocybin service centre in Gresham, Ore., in 2024. A new study looks at Ontario patients who sought acute care involving hallucinogens. (Craig Mitchelldyer/The Associated Press – image credit) WARNING: This story mentions suicide.
People who take prohibited psychedelics such as psilocybin or LSD and go to the emergency department for care show a higher risk of death within five years compared with Canada’s general population, a new study suggests.
Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs.
In the last 10 years, use of drugs such as ketamine, psilocybin, ayahuasca, and MDMA or ecstasy increased in Canada and the United States . In the U.S., the percentage of people reporting they used hallucinogens more than doubled from 3.8 per cent in 2016 to 8.9 per cent in 2021.
Use varies widely, from microdosing psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms as part of supervised treatment, to recreational use of the illegal substances.
Dr. Daniel Myran, a family physician and researcher at the University of Ottawa, recognized that in Canada, an estimated 5.9 per cent of people used a psychedelic such as psilocybin in 2023, with use as high as 13.9 per cent in people aged 20–24. It’s a trend he sees among his own patients.
In Monday’s issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal , Myran and his team start to look at the potential long-term effects of using hallucinogens, specifically risk of death.
WATCH | Psilocybin research in Canada:
"We have a huge amount of hype and buzz about psychedelic-assisted therapy," Myran said. In psychedelic-assisted therapy, psychedelics such as psilocybin are combined with psychotherapy to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and treatment-resistant depression.When Myran asks people in his practice why they’re interested in psychedelics, some have the notion it’ll help their mental health and that there aren’t a lot of risks — but there’s no clear proof that’s the case, he says, given clinical trials exclude individuals who may be at higher risk of poor outcomes."I think that we just don’t have that degree of data or certainty." Study looked at ER trips, hospitalizations To better […]
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