Denver, Colorado became the first U.S. city to decriminalize psilocybin — a chemical found in “magic mushrooms” — in May of 2019. Since then, usage across the U.S. has bloomed significantly.
Often known for a hallucinogenic effect, many people have started using psilocybin as a mental health and pain treatment. A new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine examines the increase in psilocybin consumption along with the benefits and risks of taking it.
“We found that since 2019, the number of people using psilocybin has gone up sharply,” said Karilynn Rockhill, Ph.D., the co-lead author of the study and researcher at the Colorado School of Public Health, in a press release. “This seems to line up with when some U.S. states began to decriminalize or legalize it.”
