Use of psychedelics is on the rise in Canada. Doctors are starting to look at long-term risks, benefits – CBC

Study focused on those who used hallucinogens and went to ER for uncomfortable hallucinations

Mar 03, 2025

People who take prohibited psychedelics such as psilocybin or LSD and go to the emergency department for care show a higher risk of death within five years compared with Canada’s general population, a new study suggests.

Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs.

In the last 10 years, use of drugs such as ketamine, psilocybin, ayahuasca, and MDMA or ecstasy increased in Canada and the United States. In the U.S., the percentage of people reporting they used hallucinogens more than doubled from 3.8 per cent in 2016 to 8.9 per cent in 2021.

Use varies widely, from microdosing psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms as part of supervised treatment, to recreational use of the illegal substances.

Dr. Daniel Myran, a family physician and researcher at the University of Ottawa, recognized that in Canada, an estimated 5.9 per cent of people used a psychedelic such as psilocybin in 2023, with use as high as 13.9 per cent in people aged 20–24. It’s a trend he sees among his own patients.

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/cmaj-study-hallucinogens-1.7471895