ISSN 0279-1072
213 papers in the library · 9,696 citations · publishing 1976-2026
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs August 10, 2017 Andrew J. Lees 4 citations
In 1953, William S. Burroughs made unrecognized discoveries about the composition and clinical pharmacology of the hallucinogenic plant potion ayahuasca. His voucher sample of Psychotria viridis and a letter to ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes are published here for the first time.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs June 1, 2005 Christian Frenopoulo 4 citations
Ayahuasca, a traditional medicine hallucinogen, shows significant potential in enhancing psychological well-being. In a sample of 150 participants, 70% reported improved emotional health after engaging in ayahuasca ceremonies. Additionally, 65% experienced increased creativity, influencing their artistic expression. Psychotherapists noted that those who used psychedelics like ayahuasca demonstrated greater openness and emotional resilience. The findings suggest that integrating such substances into therapeutic practices could enrich psychological interventions, highlighting the intersection of traditional medicine and modern psychology in promoting mental health.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs January 1, 1981 Rudolf Gelpke 4 citations
No Summary
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs March 3, 2025 Wayne Kepner, Patricia Dionicio, Katie Bailey et al. 3 citations
About 1 in 20 Asian American and Pacific Islander adults (5.1%) have used ecstasy/MDMA in their lifetime, based on a nationally representative sample from 2015-2020. Females had higher odds of use than males, and adults aged 26-34 had higher odds than those aged 18-25, while those aged 50 or older had lower odds. Lifetime use of other substances—cannabis, ketamine, LSD, cocaine, psilocybin, prescription opioids, and prescription stimulants—was associated with increased odds of ecstasy/MDMA use. Variations by age, sex, family income, substance type, and mental health service use point to the need for targeted public health strategies.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs February 5, 2025 Daniel J. Kruger, Jeff Albrecht, Jacob S. Aday et al. 3 citations
Motivations for using psychedelic drugs shift substantially from first use to later use. Initially, people typically use psychedelics for recreation or exploration, but over time use becomes more motivated by therapeutic or personal growth reasons, such as managing mental health conditions, spiritual growth, connecting with nature, improving creativity, and addressing trauma. These findings come from a large sample of 1,221 participants reporting naturalistic psychedelic use. The study is limited by its retrospective design but is the first to demonstrate that motivations change over time, with initial curiosity and recreation giving way to self-improvement goals like enhancing relationships and health.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs January 29, 2025 Jason B Luoma, Kim Hoffman, Adrianne R Wilson-Poe et al. 3 citations
Oregon's early psilocybin facilitator workforce is relatively diverse, with many holding existing healthcare licenses. Among 16 active training programs, mean tuition was $9,359 and half offered diversity scholarships. Survey respondents (n=106) reported that training expenses were a moderate-to-severe financial strain, though most were satisfied with their training. The mean planned price for a session was $1,388, and common specializations included trauma, mental disorders, consciousness exploration, and spirituality. Facilitators requested ongoing training opportunities. These findings are crucial for informing future policy and training program development to support a diverse and effective workforce.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs January 29, 2025 Carrie Cuttler, Amanda Stueber, Jonathan Simone et al. 3 citations
An online survey of 1,486 U.S. adults (average age 29.58, 67.1% male) examined patterns of psychedelic use. Respondents most often used MDMA, LSD, DMT, and psilocybin, primarily by oral administration and for recreational purposes. The most common acute effects were hallucinations, increased heart rate, positive mood, and visual tracers; residual effects included headaches, dry mouth, nausea, hallucinations, and anxiety. Distress about negative mood, vomiting, and nausea during acute effects was low on average. These findings can inform clinical trials and policy as psychedelic legality and accessibility evolve.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs December 24, 2024 Omer A Syed, Rotem Petranker, Emily C Fewster et al. 3 citations
A strong preference for natural over synthetic sources exists among users of psilocybin (75%), DMT (56%), and mescaline (56%), based on an anonymous online survey of 6,379 consumers from 85 countries. About half of respondents (50.8%) believe the source affects a psychedelic's psychological and physiological effects, while 34.4% are neutral. Despite preferring natural sources, 67.7% would switch to synthetic alternatives if it reduced environmental harm from overharvesting. The survey's respondents came mainly from anglophone regions.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs June 22, 2023 Bheatrix Bienemann, Amanda Rocha Barbosa, Lucas Villar Magalhães da Cruz et al. 3 citations
Psilocybin use is growing globally, and recent research shows promise for treating mental disorders. Analyzing 846 public online self-reports with textual analysis software, five clusters emerged describing mental experiences, cognitive processes, somatic experiences, perceptual alterations, and context of administration. The findings reinforce that psilocybin experiences commonly involve somatic and visual changes, feelings of connectedness and oneness with the world, the importance of setting, beneficial mystical experiences, and the phenomenon of ego dissolution. Understanding these circumstances may guide clinical use and harm reduction.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs January 22, 2023 Fiona Low, Mitch Earleywine 3 citations
Brief written educational materials of about 300 words significantly increased how credible people found both cognitive behavioral therapy and psilocybin-assisted therapy for depression, with a large effect size. Asking participants to imagine open-mindedness before reading further boosted credibility ratings for psilocybin-assisted therapy, with a medium effect. These simple, low-cost strategies could help improve how patients view treatments. The findings suggest that even short informational texts can shape treatment perceptions, and that priming open-mindedness may be especially useful for newer or less familiar therapies.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs November 25, 2021 Tomislav Majić, Lasse Brandt, Christiane Montag 3 citations
A 24-year-old high-functioning student with a history of obsessive-compulsive disorder and sporadic recreational ecstasy use developed a complex depersonalization/derealization syndrome, including intermittent time distortions and brief episodes of misidentifying people, after using ecstasy during a stressful period. Obsessive thoughts returned and he experienced his first panic attack. Symptoms fully remitted after 14 months of combined pharmacological treatment and psychotherapy. Months after discontinuing escitalopram, panic attacks recurred and became regular. While MDMA shows promise for treating anxiety disorders in controlled therapy, recreational or self-medicated use may be harmful for individuals with a history of anxiety or dissociative symptoms.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs October 9, 2025 Joseph J. Palamar, Nicole D. Fitzgerald 2 citations
The DEA proposed placing the psychedelic phenethylamines DOC and DOI into Schedule I. Analysis of DEA seizure data, national survey responses, and scientific literature from 2005 to 2024 found that DOC submissions to forensic labs peaked at 152 in 2012 then dropped to only two in 2023-2024, while only forty DOI submissions were ever recorded, with none since 2019. Self-reported lifetime use of either drug on a nationally representative U.S. survey was below 0.01%. Only three poisonings linked to DOC and none to DOI were found. Availability, recreational use, and poisonings from these substances appear rare.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs September 11, 2025 Katie Dickson, Daniel Stubbings, Megan Hurst et al. 2 citations
Attitudes toward psychedelics in the UK are shaped by broader views on drug policy. People who see drug use as a health issue rather than a criminal one are more likely to support psychedelic legalization and perceive lower risks. Women and religious individuals tend to view psychedelics as more harmful, while left-leaning and non-religious participants are more supportive of therapeutic use. Those with prior drug experience are more open to psychedelics. The findings suggest that shifting policy framing toward health-based approaches could increase support for psychedelic reform.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs August 4, 2025 Meredith C. Meacham, Maha N. Mian, Ralph C. Wang et al. 2 citations
Among U.S. adults who have ever used a hallucinogen, four distinct patterns of lifetime use emerge: a group primarily using psilocybin (16%), a larger group using both LSD and psilocybin (46%), a group mainly using ecstasy (23%), and a group using multiple hallucinogens (15%). Older age is associated with higher odds of being in the LSD/psilocybin class compared with the psilocybin-only class, and non-White participants have higher odds of being in the ecstasy class. These overlapping use patterns suggest that clinical trials and future policies should account for polysubstance hallucinogen experiences.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs March 14, 2025 Lukas Bobak, Ian Dorney, Alexsandra Kovacevich et al. 2 citations
In an analysis of 110 Reddit posts from individuals with long COVID who used psilocybin, 78.2% reported any improvement in their symptoms, while 11.8% reported worsening. Among those reporting improvement, 77.9% said the improvement lasted beyond the acute psychedelic experience, and 5.8% reported improvement only during the experience. The most common symptoms were fatigue (47.3%), cognitive impairment (46.4%), and depression (30.0%). The authors suggest that controlled studies comparing social media data for other self-treatments or prospective observational studies of individuals self-treating with psychedelics may be warranted.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs August 21, 2023 Caroline Rutherford, Austin Le, Joseph J. Palamar et al. 2 citations
Among nightclub and festival attendees at electronic dance music events in New York City, summer is associated with higher odds of using LSD and psilocybin (shrooms), independent of long-term increases in psilocybin use. Across 15 seasons from summer 2017 through fall 2022, surveys of 3,935 adults found that summer raised the odds of LSD use more than 2.5 times and psilocybin use more than 1.6 times compared to the average across all seasons. Cocaine and ecstasy use decreased over the study period without seasonal variation. The findings suggest summer as a key time for disseminating harm-reduction information for psychedelic users.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs May 18, 2026 Kevin H. Yang, Miranda Rasmussen, Kush Bhatt et al. 1 citation
Lifetime use of hallucinogens (LSD, psilocybin, MDMA, ketamine, or PCP) is associated with a modest increase in the odds of valvular heart disease after accounting for sociodemographic factors and other health conditions. In a large US adult sample, 13.2% reported lifetime hallucinogen use. The unadjusted prevalence of VHD was lower among users (3.6%) than non-users (4.7%), but after adjustment the odds rose slightly (adjusted odds ratio 1.08). The authors call for longitudinal studies to confirm this exploratory finding.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs May 30, 2025 Brandon Biba, Brian O’shea 1 citation
Analyses of Reddit discussions using Google's cloud-based Natural Language Processing (NLP) show that illicit substances such as heroin and methamphetamine are associated with highly negative general sentiments, whereas psychedelics like Psilocybin, LSD, and Ayahuasca generally evoke neutral to slightly positive sentiments. The findings suggest that online public sentiment toward psychedelics may be growing in acceptance of their therapeutic potential. Limitations include potential selection bias from the Reddit sample and challenges in accurately interpreting nuanced language using NLP.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs May 29, 2025 Araam Abboud, Kyle Hua, Hannah Redding et al. 1 citation
A survey of psychiatric patients at a community mental health center found that 62.4% were open to hallucinogenic psilocybin therapy and 60.4% to non-hallucinogenic forms. Patients with major depressive disorder preferred hallucinogenic therapy, while those with borderline personality disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder favored non-hallucinogenic options, possibly due to concerns about the intensity of hallucinogenic experiences. Individuals with substance use disorder showed greater acceptance of both forms than those without. The findings suggest societal stigma is not a major barrier to psilocybin therapy and that non-hallucinogenic forms may offer a more accessible option for some groups.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs March 5, 2025 Josephine Yalovitser, Jonah Levine, Cole Zweber et al. 1 citation
A survey of 770 Vermont primary care providers found that two-thirds were familiar with therapeutic use of psychedelics, but fewer than half knew the legal status of LSD, psilocybin, and MDMA. Ninety-six percent were neutral or agreed that psychedelics have high therapeutic potential. The top concerns were effects on youth, risk of psychosis, and traffic safety. Eighty-three percent were not at all or only slightly concerned about inherent dangers. Seventy-seven percent wanted more education. Overall, Vermont PCPs are familiar with psychedelics and cautiously optimistic about their therapeutic role.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs March 1, 2025 Alexsandra Kovacevich, Ian Dorney, Lukas Bobak et al. 1 citation
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, smell loss (olfactory dysfunction) has become more common, but effective treatments are scarce. Anecdotal reports suggest that serotonergic psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin might help. Analyzing 125 online posts from people with self-reported smell loss, 108 (86.4%) reported improvements in their sense of smell after using psychedelics. Of those, 55 (50.1%) first noticed improvement during the psychedelic experience, and 42 (38.8%) said the improvement lasted at least one day. No statistical link was found between dose and how long the benefit lasted for either psilocybin or LSD. These findings indicate that further research is needed to explore whether these substances could become a clinical treatment for smell loss.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs January 27, 2022 Ciarán Martin Fitzpatrick, B. Anderson, Gabrielle Agin-Liebes et al. 1 citation
A case report described a person with obsessive-compulsive disorder whose symptoms lessened after consuming psilocybin-containing mushrooms. The report prompted a letter arguing that psychedelic research has moved beyond case studies and that journals should prioritize publishing clinical trials over case reports.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs November 26, 2020 Heba Diab, Benjamin Malcolm 1 citation
A 39-year-old man with past polysubstance use disorder and depression developed tinnitus after inhaling DMT, though he was also microdosing LSD weekly. The ringing caused distress and anxiety, leading him to seek help from an audiologist, primary care doctor, and psychopharmacologist. Tinnitus lasted several months, but its intensity and his ability to cope improved over time. Taking psilocybin mushrooms worsened the tinnitus on two occasions, after which he stopped using psychedelics. While psychedelics are known to cause acute auditory changes, this is the first probable case linking DMT to persistent tinnitus. The report reviews possible mechanisms connecting psychedelics and tinnitus.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs July 3, 2026 Miguel Joaquim Soares Teles Couceiro, Victor José da Conceição Teixeira Amorim Rodrigues, Nuno Manuel Correia Torres
In a patient with generalized anxiety disorder and migraines, mystical-type experiences during ketamine-assisted psychotherapy appeared to contribute to therapeutic improvements. After four intramuscular sessions (0.5-0.9 mg/kg), greater gains followed sessions with higher scores on the Hood Mysticism Scale. The patient attributed progress to the psychological and spiritual impact of the experiences, highlighting the importance of the therapeutic relationship and integration process. This case suggests that subjective mystical experiences may play a meaningful role in therapeutic change during ketamine-assisted psychotherapy.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs June 19, 2026 Carla J. Berg, Darcey M. Mccready, Cassidy R. Loparco et al.
Among a sample of young adults with high rates of past-month cannabis use, lifetime and past-year psychedelic use were 27.7% and 11.9%, respectively, with psilocybin/amanita, MDMA, and LSD being most common. Nearly half used psychedelics only for nonmedical purposes. Of those who had ever used, 26.5% had microdosed. Older age, male sex, Black race, metropolitan residence, more depressive symptoms, and more adverse childhood events were linked to lifetime use. Microdosing was associated with not having children, more anxiety, and more adverse childhood events. Mental health symptoms and adverse childhood events were also tied to higher use motives, including expansion, mood enhancement, and symptom management.