As Massachusetts voters head to the polls tomorrow to decide whether to legalize psychedelics for therapeutic use, a recent study showed that a majority of Americans support psilocybin for mental health treatments.
In one of the largest psychedelics-related academic surveys this year, which polled 795 adults nationwide, about 85% approved of supervised psilocybin use in a therapeutic context.
The study was conducted by researchers from Oxford, Yale, Johns Hopkins, and University of Granada and was published earlier this year in AJOB Neuroscience. It concluded that the strong bipartisan approval indicates a public openness to legalized and controlled use of the drug for both medical and personal enhancement purposes.
“The psychedelic psilocybin has shown promise both as treatment for psychiatric conditions and as a means of improving well-being in healthy individuals. In some jurisdictions (e.g., Oregon, USA), psilocybin use for both purposes is or will soon be allowed and yet, public attitudes toward this shift are understudied,” the researchers said. “These results can inform effective policy-making decisions around supervised psilocybin use, given robust public attitudes as elicited in the context of an innovative regulatory model. We did not explore attitudes to psilocybin use in unsupervised or non-licensed community or social settings.”
The study’s goal was to address a lack of data on national public opinion around psilocybin after voters in Oregon and Colorado legalized it and Massachusetts put it on this year’s ballot. The participants’ ages ranged from 18 to 92, with a median age of 44. The sample included a wide cross-section of the U.S. population, with various genders, races, and political affiliations.
The majority approval of psilocybin for therapeutic use spanned across political lines, with both liberals and conservatives showing a strong endorsement for it. However, support varied slightly with age and political leanings: younger adults and political liberals expressed higher approval than older adults and conservatives.
Researchers recommended further research into psychedelics should be conducted.
“It is imperative that claims do not get ahead of the state of the evidence. Nevertheless, our findings do suggest that the safe and supervised use of psychedelics under conditions of legalization has the potential to find wide public acceptance,” they wrote. “If the field can overcome scientific inaccuracies, pursue rigorous research, and build trust—then psychedelics such as psilocybin may one day be seen as a mainstream means to treat mental illness and possibly also to promote overall well-being.”
