'Magic' mushroom and other hallucinogen usage by young people has nearly doubled in past three years

A new study reports that the consumption of "magic" mushrooms and other hallucinogens by young adults has nearly doubled in the past three years. 

The National Institute on Drug Abuse found that 2021 was the year that Marijuana and hallucinogen usage among young adults reached an all time-high. 

Researchers found that 6.6% of adults from ages 19 to 30 used hallucinogens other than LSD in 2021 which is up 3.4% from 2018. Young adults who use LSD rose from 3.7% to 4.2% in the same period, according to an article published this month in the journal Addiction, The Hill reports.

A study from the University of Michigan and Columbia University titled "Monitoring the Future" cited concerns about the drastic increase of drug usage, such as public health concerns and behavior issues. 

“A doubling of prevalence in just three years is a dramatic increase and raises possible public health concerns,” said Megan Patrick, a study co-author and co-principal investigator of Monitoring the Future said. 

She said that there needs to be more research done to draw better conclusions. 

“It’s really difficult to explain these trends,” Patrick continued. “We have some guesses, but we don’t really know yet.” 

Monitoring the Future conducted a survey in 1976 that discovered that 15% of 12th graders had experimented with hallucinogens. This number fell 8% in 1988, went up to 15% in 1997 and declined throughout the early 2000s. In 2022, 7% of high school seniors said they had tried a hallucinogen. 

According to federal data, young adults who experimented with hallucinogens increased from 3% in 2011 to 5% in 2016 and 8% in 202, which is a record high.