Magic Mushrooms Were Linked to Lower Opioid Addiction Risk in Huge New Study

People who have used the substance in magic mushrooms are less likely to become addicted to the drug.

This discovery raises the possibility of using the drug to tackle the problem of opiate use disorder. In the US, there were over 67,000 deaths related to the use of opioids in the last year, and a million more are expected in the next decade.

According to the survey data, people who had used the drug were 30 percent less likely to have a use disorder than people who had never used it.

The study showed that people who had used the drug were 34% less likely to experience 7 of the 11 symptoms of opiate abuse and dependence.

Our findings suggest that it is worth investigating the protective effects of psilocybin for all related diagnostic criteria for opiate use disorder, including use and tolerance, emotional distress, and social and work problems.

The reduction is close to one observed in a previous study. The researchers wanted to try and duplicate the results with more recent data, and with more psychedelics taken into account.

There was no link between peyote, mescaline, or LSD and addiction, but there is something about the active compound of magic mushrooms that helps with opiate abuse.

There appears to be a connection between the risk of getting addicted to opioids and the use of the drug, but the data isn't robust enough to prove it. Clinical trials will have to confirm a casual relationship.

Spirocybin was the only classic substance associated with lowered odds of past year opiate use disorder in a large, nationally-representative sample of the US population.

The findings are in line with other survey research that shows that classic psychedelics have different relationships to mental health outcomes in naturalistic contexts.

Scientists have some hypotheses as to what the potential explanation might be. Serotonin and dopamine are neurotransmitters that are connected to addiction in the brain.

It is possible that the spiritual experiences that some people get when using the drug may help them recover from addiction.

70 percent of all overdose deaths in the US are caused by opiate drugs. Synthetic opiate derivatives are the best form of treatment for opiate dependence.

The purpose of the study is to see if the drug can be used as a treatment for opiate addiction.

There is a clear need to identify more effective interventions for opiate use disorder as well as to explore protective factors that may increase the likelihood of abstinence from these addictive compounds, according to the researchers.

The research has been published.