Religion, Psychedelics, Risky Behavior, and Violence

ABSTRACT

Research has found that psychedelic use is associated with positive behavioral changes, however research has yet to explore the relationship between socio-cultural conditions on this relationship. This paper intends to fill this gap by testing the effects of religious participation and beliefs on the relationship between psychedelic use and behaviors. This study examines the relationship between Lifetime Classic Psychedelic Use (LCPU), different aspects of religion (such as salience and attendance), and the likelihood of committing a violent assault. The analysis uses pooled data from the National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) from 2015 to 2019, with a sample size of 282,768. Binary logistic regression models conducted in Stata 17 reveal that LCPU and religion (salience and influence) are independently associated with reduced violence. Additionally, two-way interactions indicate that the association between risky behavior and violence is smaller among individuals with high levels of religious salience. Furthermore, a three-way interaction suggests that the association between risky behavior and violence is smaller for those who have used psychedelics, with the largest effect observed among individuals with high religious salience. These results show that religious factors can influence the relationship between psychedelic use and behaviors, with both attendance and salience operating simultaneously.

KEYWORDS:

• Distress
• mental health
• psychedelics
• religion

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Availability of data and material

This project uses secondary data from the NSDUH which is available for download at https://www.datafiles.samhsa.gov/dataset/nsduh-2002–2019-ds0001-nsduh-2002–2019-ds0001

Code availability

STATA coding will be made available upon request by contacting the contributing author.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/02791072.2024.2346132

Notes

1. The NSDUH asks two questions about the use of DMT. The first question asks about lifetime use of DMT. The second question asks about the use of “DMT, AMT (alpha-methyltryptamine) or 5-MeO-DIPT?” The second variable was excluded because neither AMT nor 5-MeO-DIPT are classified as classic psychedelics and DMT use alone could not be determined from the question.

Additional information

Funding

The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript