The increasing popularity of magic mushrooms, fueled by interest in their potential mental health benefits, has raised concerns about the risks associated with recreational use. While clinical trials show promise for psilocybin as a treatment, experts warn that unsupervised use can lead to adverse effects like anxiety, trauma, and lasting visual distortions. They also highlight the lack of specialized knowledge among mainstream healthcare providers to adequately address these issues.
agic mushrooms are rapidly growing in popularity, sparking a “psychedelic renaissance” as people become more interested in their mental health benefits. But experts have warned that using them recreationally risks doing more harm than good.
Jules Evans, the director of the Challenging Psychedelic Experience academic research project, which aims to improve monitoring of adverse events, has interviewed people “in terrible crises who say they had no awareness they could endure severe difficulties for days, weeks, months or years after”, including some who were sectioned after discussing mythical experiences with a psychiatrist.
Ed Prideaux, who has researched adverse effects after experiencing HPPD, said years later he still sees a “strange sparkle”, melting wallpaper and other optical illusions. He said “basically everyone” in the psychedelic community has had at least one similar experience. “There has been an increase in problems related to psilocybin and other classic psychedelics, most likely due to the growing popularity and often overenthusiastic portrayal of these substances in the media and, in some cases, in scientific discourse. Statistically, there has been an increase in psychedelic-related presentations in emergency departments in some countries,” he said.
MAGIC MUSHROOMS PSILOCYBIN MENTAL HEALTH PSYCHEDELICS RECREATIONAL DRUG USE
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