Psychedelic Drugs Linked To Schizophrenia

A link between taking hallucinogenic drugs and psychosis has long been suspected.

Given the recent increase in people taking these drugs, a research group in Canada wanted to know if there was an association between people going to hospital because of problems related to these drugs and subsequent mental ill health - specifically, schizophrenia spectrum disorder.

Schizophrenia spectrum disorder, or SSD, is defined as either schizophrenia itself or "schizoaffective disorder" - a condition with similar symptoms to schizophrenia (such as hallucinations and delusions), but including depression or mania.

This was a retrospective study where hospital records of people living in Ontario were examined from the years 2008 to 2021. Over 5,000 people were found to have visited the emergency department for a reason related to hallucinogen use. Of these, 208 (4%) were subsequently found to develop SSD within three years. After taking age and sex into account, this equated to a 21-fold increase in the chances of developing SSD.

However, after the data was further adjusted to take into account other mental health factors and other drug use, the increased likelihood of developing SSD dropped to 3.5-fold - which is still a considerable increase in risk.