A recent study in the Journal of Psychopharmacology observed 19,000 psychedelic-using Americans and identified no link between psychedelics and mental health problems. “We failed to find evidence that psychedelic use is an independent risk factor for mental health problems,” the report reads. “Psychedelics are not known to harm the brain or other body organs or to cause addiction or compulsive use.” “Overall, it is difficult to see how prohibition of psychedelics can be justified as a public health measure,” the report concluded.
There are reasons why researchers believe psychedelics are safer than alcohol. Alcohol interferes with the brain’s communication pathways and can affect the way the brain looks and works. These disruptions can change mood and behavior, and make it harder to think clearly and move with coordination. Alcohol causes the pancreas to produce toxic substances that can eventually lead to pancreatitis, a dangerous inflammation and swelling of the blood vessels in the pancreas that prevents proper digestion.
As information is allowed to run free through the internet, it has become openly apparent that many psychedelic drugs are not the danger the profit-driven media had portrayed them to be. Often, they are one of the greatest medicines to overcome addiction. There are several different international facilities that treat addiction patients with psychedelics. We see constant negative effects of alcohol in humans, yet we are discovering one positive factor after the other when it comes to psychedelics. You wouldn’t assume that alcohol is the only one of the two that is legal.
Renowned author, Sam Harris, discusses the virtues of some specific psychedelic drugs: