Microdosing Psychedelics

By Zan Ahmad.

The rising trend involving the microdosing of psychedelic drugs and the use of other “smart drugs” to improve cognitive performance and combat mental illness has led to controversy and questions about the safety regulations that may be needed if these methods for improving neurological function are to be incorporated into society. New research analyzes whether this is all just a placebo or if there is actual scientific backing to the effects that its users may be feeling.

For decades, many successful and noteworthy individuals have accredited their achievements, in part, to various cognitive enhancement drugs. The most prominent example being Steve Jobs, who publicly stated that he would frequently microdose LSD. Many others claim that they have achieved all sorts of neurological benefits from different psychedelics and smart drugs, such as modafinil. Up until recently, most of this testimony was merely anecdotal, but in the last few years, there have been some studies done that analyze whether or not these drugs work, and exactly how safe they really are for the brain.

In a recent publication by Richard J. Stevenson of the Department of Psychology at the Macquarie University and Vince Polito of the Department of Cognitive Sciences there, titled “A systematic study of microdosing psychedelics,” tested 98 subjects. They found the subjects were experiencing better cognitive performance and mood amongst subjects on dosing days but no long lasting effects on following days. In the second part of their experiment, they tested over 200 frequent micro-dosers to account for expectation bias. These subjects believed the effects to be much more grand than reported in the evidence given by previous subjects. Their prior beliefs were unrelated to the observed pattern of reported outcomes and the current results suggest that dose controlled empirical research on the impacts of microdosing on mental health and attentional capabilities are needed.

In more clinically oriented research, psychedelics have shown promise as treatments for end of life anxiety. New findings on the effects of higher dose psychedelics are being published at a rapid rate, and overall the emerging research suggests that these substances may have beneficial impacts across a range of psychological, cognitive, affective, and psychosocial domains. While there is no specific research about the safety of microdosing LSD and other psychedelics specifically, there has been research done to show that higher doses of psychedelics are generally safe and that while some users have had unexpected disturbing episodes and negative persisting effects for some people. However, in general, psychedelics are non-addictive and considered to be among the safest of substances compared to legal substances such as alcohol and tobacco in terms of personal and societal risk. However, microdosing is something done infrequently, even by its enthusiasts, and the effects of long term, and habitual usage may have unknown risks that need to be researched further and over time.