Might Microdosing Psychedelics Be Safe and Beneficial? An Initial Exploration

ABSTRACT

Albert Hoffman suggested that low doses of LSD might be an appropriate alternative to Ritalin. Following this possibility, a systematic exploration of the effects of “microdoses,” comprising hundreds of lengthy descriptive reports, was undertaken. Based on these reports, using a psychedelic in the microdose range (10 micrograms) every three days was determined to be safe across a wide variety of individuals and conditions. Over 18 months, more than a thousand individuals from 59 countries did a daily evaluation of negative and positive emotional state using the PANAS checklist plus written reports for between one week and four months. Participant reports suggested that spaced but repeated microdoses were followed by improvements in negative moods, especially depression, and increases in positive moods. Increased energy, improved work effectiveness, and improved health habits were observed in clinical and non-clinical populations. Smaller samples described alleviation of symptoms in migraine headaches, pre-menstrual syndromes, traumatic brain injury, shingles, and other conditions not previously associated with psychedelic use.

KEYWORDS:

• Psychedelics
• microdosing
• LSD
• psilocybin

Acknowledgments

We are grateful for those scientists who have put research above career opportunities and have restored scientific respectability to psychedelic research. We are grateful to the thousands of people who have paid close attention to their own thoughts, feelings, and activities, and shared those, filling out research forms and enriching those forms with their personal reflections. We are especially grateful to spouses, significant others, parents, and children of microdosers whose comments clarified and often validated the self-reports.

We have no doubt that more and better research is coming. There is a MAPS-supported listserv of graduate students whose career paths intend to include part- or full-time psychedelic research or clinical applications. That list has hundreds of educated, motivated, and ambitious people from many countries determined that there should be no limitation on the science necessary to understand and use these substances safely, wisely, and well. It is with considerable relief that we know that our initial exploration can now step aside and welcome the clinical research beginning in 2019 in at least 12 countries. We appreciate and gratefully contribute to the intergroup cooperation established between these teams, sharing methods, data, and results.

We are also thankful to Joseph Guydish for the extensive editing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.