LSD and Other Psychedelics Not Linked With Mental Health Problems

[Richard D]

The use of LSD, magic mushrooms, or peyote does not increase a person's risk of developing mental health problems, according to an analysis of information from more than 130,000 randomly chosen people, including 22,000 people who had used psychedelics at least once.

Researcher Teri Krebs and clinical psychologist Pål-Ørjan Johansen, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's (NTNU) Department of Neuroscience, used data from a US national health survey to see what association there was, if any, between psychedelic drug use and mental health problems.

The authors found no link between the use of psychedelic drugs and a range of mental health problems. Instead they found some significant associations between the use of psychedelic drugs and fewer mental health problems.

The results are published in the journal PLOS ONE and are freely available online after 19 August.


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130819185302.htm

[yellowcanine]

1. Another old chestnut from the 60's bites the dust. LSD didn't damage chromosomes either.

I remember the uproar about that one. There was a 1967 Science article which made the claim based on the observation of ONE patient. After that there were more articles in peer reviewed journals and the popular press supporting the claim but by the mid 70s better science prevailed and the new scientific consensus was that there was no evidence supporting the notion. Somehow the popular press just quietly dropped it though, with no analysis as to how intelligent people could get it so wrong. Imagine that. http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_health4.shtml

[Scuba]

2. Leaded gasoline, on the other hand ...

http://boingboing.net/2013/01/03/leaded-gasoline-and-the-20th-c.html

[bemildred]

3. +1. nt

[Zorra]

4. I'm a very experienced psychedelics experimenter, and I am in the running for

happiest person in the world.


I stopped using psychedelics decades ago, but still use peyote, as medicine, very, very occasionally.

[Blue_In_AK]

5. Me, too.

[Zorra]

6. Yeah, huh?

[Blue_In_AK]

7. Nice graphic.

I used to have a t-shirt kind of like that.

I wouldn't trade all those trips for anything. Psychedelics were definitely my drug of choice in those days.

[Mz Pip]

8. I never believed the fear mongering back then

If it were true there would have been a huge rise in weird mutants born in San Francisco in the late 60s and early 70s.

[Egalitarian Thug]

9. Good to read. The amount of misinformation and outright lying around this topic that persists

all these decades later is astonishing.
& R