Key Takeaways
Increased use of psychedelics hasn’t caused a rise in emergency room visits and hospitalizations
Psychedelics account for fewer than 2% of hospital visits related to substance use
After a small increase early in the COVID pandemic, hospital admissions declined through 2023
FRIDAY, Nov. 21, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Increased use of hallucinogens like psilocybin hasn’t created an increase in ER visits or hospitalizations for bad trips, researchers recently reported in JAMA Network Open.
“In fact, after a small rise through early 2020, admissions declined through 2023, with no correlation to decriminalization policies,” senior researcher Dr. Kevin Xu, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, said in a news release.
Hallucinogen use is rising in the United States, researchers said in background notes. Oregon and Colorado have decriminalized the use of psilocybin, along with several cities in Massachusetts, California and Michigan.
However, it’s not clear how that increase has affected the health of users, researchers said.
For the study, researchers tracked ER visits and hospital admissions for substance use involving people 16 to 64 between 2016 and 2023.
Among more than 1.3 million people treated for substance use, fewer than 2% had taken hallucinogens, researchers found.
The monthly share of hallucinogen-related admissions ranged from 0.6% in January 2016 to a high of nearly 1.2% in January 2021.
ER visits and hospitalizations currently have stabilized into a pattern that’s slightly above pre-pandemic levels, results show.
“Hallucinogens continue to account for a small fraction of substance-related hospital admissions, outweighed by alcohol- and opioid-related encounters,” the research team concluded in their report.
“These findings add important context to other studies showing rises in hallucinogen use," researcher Richard Grucza, a professor of family and community medicine and health outcomes research at Saint Louis University School of Medicine, said in a news release.
“Those increases don't seem to be contributing to rising ER visits, and if anything, alcohol and other drugs seem to be driving adverse consequences of psychedelic use,” Grucza said.
More information
The Cleveland Clinic has more on hallucinogens.
SOURCES: Saint Louis University, news release, Nov. 18, 2025; JAMA Network Open, Nov. 18, 2025
What This Means For You
Decriminalization of psychedelics has not caused a surge in hospitalizations related to use of those drugs.
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