New Delhi, March 3
The use of hallucinogens, such as ketamine and psychedelics can raise the risk of death by 2.6-fold, according to a study on Monday.
Researchers from The Ottawa Hospital in Canada noted that the use of hallucinogens including psilocybin, LSD, ayahuasca, and MDMA (ecstasy), has rapidly increased since the mid-2010s.
Increasing use may partially also reflect growing medical and societal interest in pairing psychedelics with psychotherapy for mental health and substance use disorders, said the team.
However, although psychedelic-assisted therapy trials have generally been safe, there is little data about whether hallucinogens might increase the risk of adverse events, such as thoughts of suicide and death, when used outside of carefully controlled clinical trial settings or in populations currently excluded from trials.
“Despite the growing popularity of hallucinogen use, we know surprisingly little about potential adverse effects of hallucinogens, such as mortality risks. Contemporary clinical trials have not observed any short-term increase in the risk of severe adverse events, including death, for trial participants. However, these studies involve careful supervision and therapy for trial participants and exclude people at high risk of adverse outcomes,” said Dr. Daniel Myran, a family physician and public health and preventive medicine physician-researcher at The Ottawa Hospital.