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The Psychedelics Perceptions Tracker
Explore our curated series of headline figures, charts and data visualisations to learn how various groups perceive and interact with psychedelics. ∎
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Explore the Data
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Public Perceptions
To begin, we look at overall support for psychedelics access, use, and research among various populations, before diving deeper to explore awareness, perceptions, perceived risks and harms, and how demographic factors contour support.
PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS
Overall Support for Access, Use & Research
PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS
Awareness, Education & Perceptions
Figure: Sentiment towards psychedelics based on respondents’ personal experience, grouped by all U.S. adults 18+, those who have not tried, and those who have tried (Source: XandY Survey, 2025).
Several polls of public sentiment toward psychedelics reveal strong support for therapeutic use and scientific research. Many respondents express willingness to try psychedelics themselves, despite most reporting limited familiarity with existing research.
Support is highest for access in end-of-life care and lowest for unrestricted adult access. Notably, positive sentiment increases sharply among those with personal experience. There is also broad endorsement for educational programs in high schools that address both the risks and benefits of psychedelic use.
PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS
Perceived Risks & Harms
4
%
say psychedelics should be legal in all or most cases (versus 66% support legalising cannabis)
PRRI, 2024; n=5,352 U.S. public (18+)
Despite growing interest, concerns about psychedelic safety persist: over half of respondents still perceive psychedelics as harmful in some way. This caution is reflected in comparative attitudes toward drug policy—more than twice as many respondents support cannabis legalisation as legalisation of psychedelics.
Figure: Reasons why American adults (18+) expressed opposition towards psychedelic policy proposals (including medicalisation, legalisation, decriminalisation) (Source: XandY Survey, 2025).
PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS
How Politics and Age Shape Support
Figure: Percentage of respondents supporting legalisation of psychedelics in most or all cases, grouped by party and political ideology (Source: PRRI American Values Study, 2024).
Support for psychedelic use and legalisation varies sharply across demographic and ideological lines, with political affiliation, religious identity, age, and geography all emerging as strong predictors. More specifically, liberals, younger adults, non-religious individuals, and urban residents are significantly more likely to favour legal access.
While support for psychedelic policy remains strongest among liberals, data from the UC Berkeley Psychedelics Survey (2025) reveals a slight shift among conservatives. Between 2023 and 2025, self-reported political conservatives saw a notable rise in proximity to psychedelic use—from 43% to 50%. Self-reported liberals, however, held steady at around 65% across both years.
Experience and Familiarity
Beyond directly asking the public how they feel about psychedelics, we can also look at data on levels of use. Here, we review a handful of studies that seek to reveal levels of psychedelic use in the U.S. and globally.
EXPERIENCE & FAMILIARITY
Psychedelic Use in the U.S.
4.4
%
Hallucinogen use among 19–30-year-olds more than doubled in a decade, jumping from 4.4% in 2014 to 9.7% in 2024
Monitoring the Future, 2024; n=4,493 U.S. 19-65 year olds
32
%
of respondents say they or someone close to them has used psychedelics at some point
UC Berkeley, 2025; n=1,577 U.S. voters
10
%
Hallucinogen use surged nearly 37% in just three years
National Survey on Drug Use and Health (U.S.), 2024; n=>70,000 U.S. public (12+)
.
Hallucinogens are now the second most-used substance in the US, overtaking alcohol and nicotine
National Survey on Drug Use and Health (U.S.), 2024; n=>70,000 U.S. public (12+)
Figure: Past 12-month psychedelic use trends grouped by age. Psychedelics include mescaline, peyote, “shrooms” or psilocybin, and—notably—PCP, which is a dissociative anaesthetic. Despite PCP’s inclusion, it represents a minimal portion of aggregate psychedelics use and does not drive the trend seen in the graph. LSD was not included in this analysis. (Source: Monitoring the Future, 2024)
20
%
of American psychedelics users travelled outside of their home state to take psychedelics
National Survey Investigating Hallucinogen Trends, 2024;=2,124 psychedelic users in the U.S. (18+)
.
use continue to fall among young adults, suggesting other psychedelics are driving the surge
Monitoring the Future, 2024; n=4,493 U.S. 19-65 year olds
.
to psychedelics use, whether through personal experience or someone close to them. From 2023 to 2025, proximity rose from 41% to 51% among 65-74 year olds, and from 23% to 38% among those over 74 years old.
National Survey on Drug Use and Health (U.S.), 2024; n=>70,000 U.S. public (12+)
EXPERIENCE & FAMILIARITY
Psychedelic Use Outside the U.S.
~
295000
UK psilocybin use among 16-59 year olds rose by 37.5% in 2024, reaching ~300,000 users; nearly as many as those using ecstasy
Office for National Statistics Drug Misuse Survey, 2024; n=~30,000 UK public (16+)
1
%
of European young adults (aged 15 – 34 years old) used MDMA in the past year (2.6 million people)
EUDA’s European Drug Report, 2024; 26 EU countries
.
are among the European psychedelic use hot spots
EUDA’s European Drug Report, 2024; 26 EU countries
Figure: Past 12-month drug use among 16-54 year olds in the UK, grouped by commonly used drugs of interest (Ecstasy/MDMA; Magic mushrooms; ketamine; LSD) (source: Office for National Statistics, 2024)
Figure: Motivations for psychedelic use. (Source: Global Psychedelic Survey, 2023.) ‘All Other’ represents responses from countries other than those listed. Responses from 85 countries in total were included (n=6,379).
EXPERIENCE & FAMILIARITY
Policy Reform and Ballot Initiatives
We can also look to global and domestic policy landscapes, with recent US public ballot measures revealing growing—albeit uneven—momentum toward reform, with implications for access, oversight and public perception.
Figure: Regional voting patterns on a 2025 resolution by the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND, 2025) calling for an independent expert review of international drug control systems (Source: UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, 2025)
The 2025 UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs voted in favour of a groundbreaking resolution that paves the way for the first independent review of global drug control systems. With 56% of member states supporting the measure—reflecting a diverse cross-regional alliance—the resolution signals growing international appetite for evidence-based, rights-aligned drug policy reform. While not specific to psychedelics, this shift in global oversight could have far-reaching implications for how psychedelic substances are classified, regulated, and researched.
| State & Proposal | Year | Support | Outcome | Scope |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oregon Measure 109 | 2020 | 55.75% | Passed | Created a state psilocybin services prorgam |
| Oregon Measure 110 | 2020 | 58.46% | Passed; largely repealed in 2024 | Decriminalised possession of all drugs, including psychedelics |
| Washington, DC Initiative 81 | 2020 | 76.18% | Passed | Deprioritised enforcement of non-commercial used of entheogenic plants and fungi |
| Colorado Proposition 122 | 2022 | 53.64% | Passed | Created a state psychedelics services program, decriminalised certain psychedelics |
| Massachusetts Question 4 | 2024 | 43.16% | Failed | Would have established a state-regulated psychedelics services program and decriminalised certain psychedelics |
Table: State ballot measures on psychedelic policy in the U.S. (2020-2024).
Recent US ballot measures and policy support surveys also reveal a growing, though again uneven, appetite for drug, and specifically psychedelic, reform.
Therapeutic access initiatives are seeing some movement, with Oregon’s Measure 109 and Colorado’s Proposition 122 passing by narrow margins. However, setbacks still persist: Massachusetts’ Question 4 proposal, which aimed to legalise possession and therapeutic use of various psychedelics, failed last November. What’s more, Oregon’s Measure 110—which decriminalised possession of all illicit drugs—was partially overturned in 2024 due to safety concerns.
Figure: Change in US public support for psychedelic policy proposals from 2023 to 2025 (Source: UC Berkeley Psychedelics Survey, 2025)
Broader Interest
Beyond public opinion and usage data, we can also examine more neutral indicators of public engagement with psychedelics.
Researchers have, for example, analysed Reddit discussions to gauge online public sentiment, which indicates growing acceptance of psychedelics. Favourability now exceeds that of other illicit substances such as heroin and methamphetamine.
Google Trends is a commonly used tool for tracking search interest over time. The data reveal a clear and sustained rise in searches for ‘psychedelics’ over the past decade.
Figure: Google Trends data for web searches of “psychedelics”, worldwide.
Google Books’ Ngram viewer offers a historical perspective, tracking the frequency of terms in printed texts from 1800 onward, helping us chart longer-term shifts in discourse around psychedelics. Again, we see a clear upwards trend in term frequency from around 2010 onwards.
Figure: Google Books Ngram data for “psychedelics”, 1950-2019. We restricted our search to 1950 onwards, given that the term ‘psychedelic’ was coined in that decade.
We also queried the News on the Web (NOW) Corpus—18 billion words from online news sources across 20 English-speaking countries—to track how often “psychedelics” appear in media on a year-by-year basis. Interestingly, mentions surged between 2010 and 2021, but have trended downwards since.
Figure: The number of times the keyword ‘psychedelics’ is mentioned per million words across online news outlets. The 2025 data includes both a year-to-date (YTD) figure and a projected year-end total, the latter shown in a lighter shade of purple and extrapolated from current trends. Note: this does not include variations of “psychedelics”, like the singular “psychedelic”. The latter is often used as an adjective. (source: News on the Web corpus, 2010-2025 YTD (up to and including 19th August 2025)).
Expanding the search across individual psychedelic compounds reveals a varied landscape. While all terms showed consistent upward momentum between 2010 and 2021, many—like the general ‘psychedelics’ term—have experienced a tapering off in recent years.
That said, 2025 signals a potential rebound: MDMA and DMT, in particular, are showing notable increases compared to their 2024 mention counts, suggesting renewed interest or shifting discourse.
Figure: The number of times key psychedelic substances are mentioned per million words across online news outlets. The 2025 data includes projected year-end totals indicated by dashed lines and extrapolated from current trends. (source: News on the Web corpus, 2010-2025 YTD, up to and including 19th August 2025)).
Patients
Beyond general public sentiment, the medical model for psychedelics hinges on how patients themselves perceive and engage with them.
PATIENTS
Support & Willingness to Try
Figure: Mental health patient responses to multiple questions about psychedelic therapies, including awareness, willingness to try, perceived effects, and general attitudes toward use. Responses are scored on a Likert scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. (Source: Corrigan et al, 2020)
Editor’s note: This data is from a 2020 survey. Today’s results would likely differ. We will provide more recent data when it becomes available. ∎
PATIENTS
Key Concerns
Education, professional endorsement, safe settings, and therapeutic rapport were the most popular suggestions for meeting psychedelics-related concerns
Harding et al., 2020; n=200 respondents with eating disorders
Trial participants and patients have voiced a range of concerns, from persistent stigma and cultural taboos to practical barriers like cost, access, legal status, and potential adverse effects. Many also worried about interactions with existing medications and the challenges of discontinuing current treatments. Alongside these concerns, thoughtful solutions were offered—including broader public education, professional endorsement, safe and supportive settings, and the importance of building strong therapeutic relationships.
Practitioners and Health Professionals
Healthcare practitioners will be key gatekeepers to the delivery of psychedelic therapies in the medical model. In regard to psychedelic use outside of the medical model, healthcare practitioners (including groups like social workers) will play an important role in delivering education and harm reduction. Their ability to effectively counsel patients, along with their willingness to prescribe, will be modulated by their understanding of, and perspectives on, psychedelics.
25
%
of U.S. clinical sites surveyed believe there is sufficient demand for psychedelic therapies
BrainFutures, 2024; n=20 clinical sites
58
%
of U.S. addiction specialists said the therapeutic use of psychedelics shows promise in psychiatric disorders
Kim and Suzuki, 2023, n=145 U.S. addiction experts
Professional sentiment around psychedelics is undergoing a marked transformation: over 80% of psychiatrists now agree these substances hold therapeutic promise—a nearly 40-point increase since 2016. Interest is also surging among medical students, with nearly all expressing a desire to learn more about psychedelic research. Across practitioner groups, belief in the therapeutic potential of psilocybin and MDMA consistently scores above 4 on a 5-point scale, indicating broad and growing support for clinical integration.
| Type of Practitioner | Psilocybin | MDMA |
|---|---|---|
| Physicians (n=156) | 4.63 | 4.22 |
| Advanced Practice Providers (n=129) | 4.58 | 4.14 |
| Registered Nurses (n=233) | 4.72 | 4.21 |
| Mental Health Professionals (n=258) | 4.69 | 4.34 |
| Other (n=113) | 4.69 | 4.26 |
Table: Belief in the therapeutic promise of psilocybin and MDMA by profession. Rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 “strongly disagree” to 5 “strongly agree.”. N=879. (source: Wang et al, 2024)
Figure: Key barriers reported by U.S. clinical sites to adopting psychedelic treatments into their practice (source: BrainFutures, 2024)
Most clinical sites expect sufficient patient demand for psychedelic treatments and say that they would be willing to initiate care even without insurance coverage. Key perceived barriers to implementation include financial constraints, malpractice concerns, potential adverse reactions, and limited training resources.
Conclusions
The data presented here reveal marked shifts in public and professional attitudes toward psychedelics in recent years, particularly their use in therapeutic contexts.
A strong majority of U.S. voters now support legal access for medical use and greater freedom for scientific research, with even higher approval for specific applications such as end-of-life care and treatment for military veterans. This growing openness is echoed by both healthcare practitioners and patients. There is also a clear trend of increased use of psychedelics that can be observed across geographies, age groups, and political beliefs.
Despite this momentum, concerns around safety and legality remain. Many still perceive psychedelics as potentially harmful or addictive, for example, and support for broader legalisation lags significantly behind that for therapeutic access.
We will continue to update this page as new data becomes available. ∎
