On the mushrooming reports of “quiet quitting”: Employees’ lifetime psilocybin use predicts their overtime hours worked
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs – July 31, 2023
Source: OpenAlex
Summary
Lifetime psilocybin use significantly reduces overtime, impacting workplace psychology. Data from 217,963 U.S. full-time employees reveal individuals using this hallucinogen work an estimated 44,348,400 fewer overtime hours annually. This demographic economics insight is crucial as decriminalization and legalization of psychedelics advance. As medicine and psychiatry explore psilocybin's potential, and Current Population Survey-type data tracks labor trends, understanding such population effects is vital for drug studies.
Abstract
Despite the recent and sharp rise in psychedelic research, few studies have investigated how classic psychedelic use relates to employees' work-related outcomes. This is surprising given that the increased use, decriminalization, and legalization of classic psychedelics in the United States (U.S.) has the potential to impact both employees and their organizations. Addressing this gap, the current study explores how employees' lifetime psilocybin use relates to the amount of overtime they work, thereby offering insight into what current trends in psilocybin use could mean for businesses. Using pooled, cross-sectional data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (2002-2014) on 217,963 adults employed in the U.S. full-time, this study tests whether lifetime psilocybin use is associated with employees' number of overtime hours worked in the past week. After adjusting for sociodemographics and other substance use, a significant negative association is found between employees' lifetime psilocybin use and the amount of overtime they reported working. Specifically, the findings suggest that lifetime psilocybin use in the U.S. full-time working population is associated with an estimated 44,348,400 fewer overtime hours worked per year and may help explain recent findings linking employees' lifetime psilocybin use to a reduction in sick leave taken.