Trends in the psychedelic renaissance: applying artificial intelligence to measure media portrayal of psychedelic drugs in the 21st century
David A. Bender, Holly Dunn, Amanda Pekau, Arushi D. Mohite, Akila Anandarajah, Brendan Ross, Jacob T. Steinle, Suraj Shankar, Brandon J. Kiley, Sara Martin, Rishi Gonuguntla, Mia Stonov, Nithya Pippala, Rana Abdalla, Madison K. Stille, Juy Yusuf, Madeline Villalba, Gibson Werner, Anvi Divekar, Melinda Daniels-Tineo, Hannah Wang, Sophia Chertock, Sonali Sharma, Syed Ali Ahmed, Reetwan Bandyopadhyay, Jatin Sridhar, M.k. Iyer, Adebusola Adeyemi, Kayla Smart, Umer Jalil, Zaryab Alam, Barış Erçal, David J. Hellerstein, Charles B. Nemeroff
BJPsych Open February 12, 2026 DOI: 10.1192/bjo.2025.10974 via OpenAlex
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractFrom 2000 to 2025, media coverage of psychedelic drugs increasingly focused on their therapeutic potential, rising from 13.3% of articles in 2000–2009 to 85.3% in 2020–2025. Overall sentiment was positive, with an average score of 78.5 out of 100. However, negative and neutral coverage has grown since 2020: the proportion of articles with sentiment scores of 65 or below rose from 3.6% in 2020 to 20.9% in 2024, and average sentiment dropped significantly in 2024 compared to 2020–2023. Artificial intelligence sentiment ratings closely matched human ratings.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Longitudinal media analysis Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 3,308 |
| Population | News articles from Google News searches for the term 'psychedelics' from 2000 to 2025 |
| Topics | LSD |
| Keywords | Measure data warehouse Subconscious Consciousness Print media |
| Citations | 1 |
| Key finding | Media sentiment toward psychedelic drugs became more negative and neutral after 2020, despite overall positive coverage across the 21st century. |
Abstract
Background The relationship between media portrayal of psychedelic drugs, scientific research and drug policy is an area of debate. Aims To apply artificial intelligence technology to measure trends in media sentiment towards the therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs. Method Up to 300 of the most relevant articles from Google News searches for the term ‘psychedelics’ were sampled for each year from 2000 to 2025. A large language model, ChatGPT, evaluated subject matter and sentiment. Results In total, 88.3% of screened URLs (3308 of 3747) were included in the analysis. The proportion of articles focusing on the therapeutic potential of psychedelics increased from 13.3% (26 of 198) from 2000 to 2009 to 85.3% (1254 of 1470) from 2020 to 2025. The average sentiment score from 2000 to 2025 for articles from all publications ( N = 2168) was 78.5 ± 9.3 (mean ± s.d.) (possible range: 1–100). 1.3% (29 of 2168) of articles carried negative sentiment (<50) whereas 4.8% (103 of 2168) had extremely positive sentiment (≥90). Average sentiment reached a peak in 2020 (80.8 ± 7.0), and a statistically significant trough in sentiment was observed in 2024 relative to 2020–2023 (2020–2023, 79.2; 2024, 74.3, P < 0.00001, Mann–Whitney U -test). The proportion of negative-neutral articles (≤65) increased annually from a trough of 3.6% (8 of 267) in 2020 to a peak of 20.9% (43 of 253) in 2024. Artificial intelligence sentiment scores were correlated and concordant with average human rater scores ( r = 0.88, concordance correlation coefficient 0.84). Conclusions Although most 21st-century media coverage of psychedelic drugs has been positively framed, negative and neutral coverage has increased in frequency since 2020. Researchers, clinicians, regulators and policy-makers should be mindful of the complex relationship between media portrayals of psychedelics and the results of scientific research.