Preferences and Support for Psychedelic Policies and Practices Among Those Using Psychedelics

ABSTRACT

Legal, scientific, and social landscapes for psychedelics are changing rapidly. Differences of opinion exist among key stakeholders regarding regulatory control, models of provisioning psychedelic therapy, and medicalization, decriminalization, and/or legalization policies. We assessed the policy preferences of people using psychedelics naturalistically (N = 1221) to understand how they aligned and differed with institutional entities and existing psychedelic policies. Three quarters of participants would support decriminalization and legalization. On average, participants strongly supported individuals being legally able to grow and possess psychedelic plants and/or fungi for personal consumption. Trends included more support for natural over synthetic substances, self-production and consumption over gifting, gifting over sales, and administration of psychedelics with therapeutic support than without therapeutic support. Participants were concerned about pharmaceutical-like policy models, including patents of natural and synthetic psychedelic compounds. Participants were mostly from the State of Michigan, though geographical differences were minor. Those who identified as a psychedelic guide, educator, or therapist had small yet extensive differences from those who did not. As psychedelic liberalization continues to advance, it is critical for policymakers to consider these preferences to ensure laws provide safe and equitable access to these substances and appropriate medical support for their use.

KEYWORDS:

• Psychedelics
• policy
• community
• preferences
• community-based research

Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to the participants for their time and willingness to complete the survey for this study.

Disclosure statement

This research did not receive any specific grants from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. KFB sits on a data safety and monitoring board for an ongoing clinical trial with Vireo Health (unpaid). JB is the Founder/President of the Michigan Psychedelic Society, Co-Director of Decriminalize Nature Michigan, Board Member of Decriminalize Nature, Founder/Executive Director of Decriminalize Nature Ann Arbor (all unpaid) and is a Psychedelic Integration and Music Therapist at Blue Sage Health Consulting. MH is a therapist with a specialty in Psychedelic Integration at The Radical Well-Being Center.DJK has no conflicts of interest to declare.

Data availability statement

The data that support these findings are available from the corresponding author (DJK) upon requesthttp://www-personal.umich.edu/~kruger/.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/02791072.2023.2228784.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.