Do undergraduates’ views of psychedelics relate to the context for psychedelic use?
Drug Science Policy and Law – March 01, 2025
Source: OpenAlex
Summary
Undergraduates largely perceive psilocybin and other hallucinogens similarly across diverse contexts, from clinical therapy to naturalistic use. A study of 277 psychedelic-naïve undergraduates (75.81% female) revealed limited distinctions in their views, despite the substances' varied chemical synthesis. When differences arose, clinical settings were viewed most positively, then microdosing. Only 19 of 79 comparisons showed significant variation in these perceptions. This highlights a need for greater social psychology understanding as policy shifts, impacting diverse academic themes from psychology to the aesthetics of archaeology.
Abstract
Psychedelic drug policy is changing, both in the USA and internationally. However, psychedelic use is not homogeneous, as there are multiple unique contexts for use, including clinical therapies, naturalistic use, and microdosing. There are notable differences between these contexts regarding emerging evidence for safety, therapeutic efficacy, likely future legality, and more. We compared psychedelic-naïve undergraduates’ views (expectancies, perceptions of benefits, and perceptions of harms) of psilocybin and lysergic acid diethylamide across each context. Item-level data were analyzed using non-parametric methods, correcting for multiple comparisons. Participants were 277 psychedelic-naïve undergraduates (75.81% female; 81.95% White; 76.17% non-Hispanic), with a mean age of approximately 19.50 years (standard deviation = 2.01). Only 19 out of 79 omnibus tests assessing views of psychedelics across contexts were statistically significant; when participants’ views of psychedelics were context dependent, they generally had the most positive views of clinical contexts, then microdosing, and, lastly, naturalistic contexts. This indicates that psychedelic-naïve undergraduates make limited distinctions between contexts for psychedelic use, which suggests that, in the USA, psychedelic-naïve undergraduates may benefit from education about differences between contexts, especially considering their potential to impact psychedelic drug policy. To our knowledge, this is the first study to compare views of psilocybin and lysergic acid diethylamide across three important, emerging contexts for psychedelic use.