The U.S. Psilocybin Landscape: Policy Evolution and Nationally Representative Insights

Background. An increasing number of US states and localities are loosening or considering changing their policies about psychedelic substances such as psilocybin. To project the health and economic consequences of policy changes, we need better information about use patterns, supply sources, and expenditures. Because detailed information about psilocybin consumption and supply is not collected as part of nationally representative surveys in the US, we start to fill this gap.

Methods. We analyzed the legislation for every psychedelic policy change at the local and state levels. We also fielded a survey on psilocybin as part of NORC’s AmeriSpeak panel which is representative of the entire U.S. adult population. The survey includes detailed questions about psilocybin prevalence, frequency, product type, supply source, expenditures, intensions for use, and whether the most recent experience was supervised. 

Results. More than 20 localities have deprioritized the enforcement of certain psychedelic laws. One state has defelonized personal possession of psilocybin (NJ), one state has decriminalized the personal possession of all controlled substances (OR), two states have legalized the supervised use of psilocybin (CO & OR), and one state has legalized the cultivation and sharing of five nature-based psychedelics (CO). The survey results are forthcoming; data collection ended in January 2024 and we are currently analyzing the data. In addition to presenting descriptive statistics which will provide new information about psilocybin use and supply, we will present the first national estimates of the US psilocybin market and compare it with what is known about markets for other substances.

Conclusions. We will offer thoughts about what these results mean for conducting policy analyses and ideas about how to improve data collection on psilocybin and other psychedelics.