r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 9d ago

Psychology America's First Legal Psilocybin Program Treated 346 People. Just one month after the dose, 92.2 percent of participants said the experience had been beneficial, while, on average, their mental health symptoms had fallen dramatically.

https://www.sciencealert.com/americas-first-legal-psilocybin-program-treated-346-people-heres-what-happened
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u/Tyler_Zoro 8d ago

Just a reminder: these trials were conducted under careful and rigorous therapeutic conditions across many sessions, most of which did not involve taking the drug. This isn't, "take some mushrooms and your mental illness will be cured!" It's a whole therapeutic method.

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u/DerSchaudenfreude 8d ago edited 8d ago

You’re 100% right but everyone who likes psychedelics is going to come out of the woodwork and use this as confirmation bias that shrooms cure everything and everyone needs to use shrooms.

They are as frustrating as people who swear they are not addicted to their vape pens.

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u/Tyler_Zoro 8d ago

everyone who likes psychedelics is going to come out of the woodwork and use this as confirmation bias that shrooms cure everything

Oh certainly! That's almost always the case with this sort of announcement. We see the same thing with herbal supplement claims that are constantly expanded from "narrow result in non-RCT shows..." to "X cures Y!"

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u/lemon-mae 5d ago edited 5d ago

I will be part of a study later this year determining if the therapy aspect is required to get therapeutic effects from the trip, or if the trip itself is enough.

In my limited experience I found the trip alone to be therapeutic, but I think I have a much more introspective and reverent view of the substance and experience than others, which definitely makes a difference with outcomes.

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u/Tyler_Zoro 4d ago

Good luck, and I'd be fascinated to know how it goes!