National
  1. Home
  2. News
  3. Health

Global Drug Survey set to peel back curtain on professionals microdosing on LSD and magic mushrooms

Evan's morning routine is pretty run of the mill, except for the tiny dose of magic mushrooms he washes down with his morning coffee.

It's about one-tenth of the size of the dose recreational users would take to get high. That not what Evan's after. He microdoses to give his day an extra kick and clarity.

Up Next

Drug use: Australia v the world

null
Video duration
03:40

More Health and Fitness Videos

null
Video duration
00:19

Join the Global Drug Survey
null
Video duration
03:40

Drug use: Australia v the world
null
Video duration
03:03

Thunderstorm asthma: what triggers it
null
Video duration
04:03

Why resistant starch is good for you

More videos

Join the Global Drug Survey

The 2016 Global Drug Survey is trying to find out how people in over 20 countries use and are affected by both legal and illegal drugs.

"It felt like it was a big risk; doing something illegal and going to work," the allied health worker said.

"But it was a really, really good day.

Related Content

"I felt I could engage with people like I hadn't been able to do in a long time. I was able to connect with [clients] and found they responded more positively.

"It was almost like I'd taken a mindfulness pill. I was way more present in the moment.

Advertisement

"It had such a minuscule impact on my actual functioning, but a strong impact on my sense of the world. Outwardly it's a really subtle shift. The effect of a coffee or a valium would be a lot stronger.

"There is no way anybody at work would know."

It's not an isolated scenario. Myriad anecdotes describe professionals taking microdoses of LSD and other hallucinogens unbeknown to colleagues, clients and friends.

There is no robust data that proves microdosing can help people problem solve, stay alert and focus, or the potential short and long-term harms associated with the trend. It's also illegal.

But it's time to collect solid data about the claim that microdosing on LSD and other hallucinogens make people more productive, more creative and less stressed at work, psychedelic drug researchers say.

Microdosers take a fraction of the normal recreational dose of psychedelic, usually 10 to 20 micrograms of LSD or 0.2-0.5 grams of magic mushrooms (psilocybin).

They report the tiny doses are not potent enough to cause hallucinations but can heighten your alertness, energy and creativity.

Online forums on drug harm reduction sites like Bluelight are dotted with personal tales of people microdosing to give them a slight buzz.

Many of the accounts collected by researchers have trickled out of the US melting pot of tech and creative industries, Silicon Valley.

Other accounts were less favourable, with users reporting paranoia, hyperactivity and becoming physically ill.

"There's a lot of anecdotes, but the plural of anecdotes is not research," said clinical psychologist Stephen Bright at Curtin University and the Psychedelic Research In Science & Medicine (PRISM).

"Is it the drug I'm taking? Or am I getting a placebo effect? Am I being more mindful of the moment because I know I'm microdosing? The only way we'll know that is with randomised controlled trials," he said.

Researchers still have no accurate, even ball park, indication of how many people are microdosing in Australia and internationally.

That's about to change with the launch of the latest Global Drug Survey (GDS), which had more than 100,000 participants from over 50 countries last year.

Working with the Imperial College London psychedelic research group, the GDS study explores how common the practice of taking microdosing is, how people are using it and whether it worked for them.

Participants are also asked if they've ever treated physical or psychiatric conditions with psychedelics.

Nigel Strauss – a clinical psychiatrist and advocate for Australian psychedelic research – said proposals to study psychedelic drug-assisted therapy struggle to attract funding and are treated with extreme caution by universities.

"There are people out there who are doing it [microdosing]," he said.

"Whether it makes people more efficient or not is very much open to conjecture. The research on these drugs needs to be done in a proper clinical setting.

"Because there's no control over any of this, it is all anecdotal and as far as research is concerned we know very little about it," he said.

President of PRISM, researcher Martin Williams said Australia was inching closer to medical trials to test the therapeutic effect of psychedelics and ecstasy, with similar trials under way overseas.

In November the FDA in the US approved large-scale clinical trials of ecstasy to treat post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Everything tends to happen at a glacial pace until something clicks," he said.

"More and more conservatives you wouldn't expect are getting on board starting to say this is interesting."

Last year, an unidentified 25-year-old man working for a tech start-up in San Francisco told Rolling Stone magazine after microdosing at work: "I was making a lot of sales, talking to a lot of people, finding solutions to their technical problems."

As with all illegal drug use, experts warn that the composition of such substances is impossible to guarantee. Hallucinogenics can cause psychotic reactions, intense hallucinations and paranoia, while LSD was this year blamed for the death of 15-year-old Arthur Cave, son of singer Nick Cave, who fell from a cliff after taking the drug.

Fairfax Media has partnered with the GDS for its fifth year to help understand how and why people take drugs in Australia.

Related Content

Advertisement