Minorities’ diminished psychedelic returns

Abstract

Although there is a growing support for the use of psychedelics to improve the health of marginalized groups, there are some critical gaps. First, no empirical studies have examined the effects of psychedelics on Black Americans. Second, there is little research on population effects of psychedelics. Third, little research has tested how cultural set and setting may affect the relationship between psychedelics and health. Specifically, how could economic inequality or the criminal justice system jeopardize the relationship between psychedelics and health for Black people. This study tests race and gender differences in multiple aspects of lifetime classic psychedelic use, specifically drug use, arrest history, economic inequality, and psychological distress. This project uses pooled data of Black and White respondents from the National Survey of Drug Use and Health (2008–2019) ( N = 490,586). The analysis includes a series of logistic and ordinary least square regression models conducted in Stata 17. Results demonstrate that Black people are policed more even though they use less drugs than Whites. Higher class White men are more likely to use psychedelics, while class does not predict use among Black people. Finally, for White men and women, the positive association of psychedelics are enhanced by class, while the negative effect of arrest history on health are buffered by psychedelics. However, Black people do not gain health benefits from psychedelics regardless of class or arrest history. Results suggest that systemic inequality deters use and eliminates all health benefits of psychedelics for Black people.

Perceptions of psychedelic use by adults in the United States: Perceived psychospiritual benefits and risks, including spiritual struggles.

“…Future cross-cultural work, or studies that oversample from different religious or spiritual traditions, would be very valuable. Non-White individuals have been underrepresented in psychedelic research (e.g., George et al, 2020; Michaels et al, 2018; Thrul & Garcia-Romeu, 2021), and studies have documented racial differences in psychedelic experiences (e.g., Neitzke-Spruill, 2020), psychological outcomes of psychedelic experiences (Jones & Nock, 2022; Viña & Stephens, 2023), and attitudes about psychedelic-assisted therapy (Carter et al, 2023).…”

Psychedelics Use and the Risk of Reduced Formal Mental Health Care

“…Different cultural norms regarding mental health care can lead individuals to adopt various drug use and coping practices, some of which may divert them from necessary clinical or treatment conditions that enhance the effectiveness of these drugs. Moreover, growing evidence nds that the positive impact of psychedelics on health vary among marginalized groups including by race, gender, marital status, employment status, and socioeconomic status [73][74][75][76][77][78] . Research on set and setting has shown that the e cacy of psychedelics is heavily dependent on the psychological and environmental context 79 .…”

Diminished psychedelic returns on distress: Marital status and household size

“…Another study found that, while those who are employed and use psychedelics have significantly lower levels of psychological distress, non-employed users have higher levels of distress [ 33 ]. Another study found that while Black psychedelic users saw no decrease in stress, white psychedelic users saw a significant increase in stress, which was further amplified by education [ 34 ]. Additionally, their study found that criminal history significantly attenuated the positive association of psychedelics for white users, but not black users.…”

“…A modified version theory cultural set-and-setting, which takes a social-epidemiological approach, has been proposed as an explanation to identify smaller health gains of psychedelic use among minority populations [ 34 ]. The first iteration of the theory of cultural set-and-setting proposed that because the effects of psychedelics are “fundamentally reliant on context–both in the psychological and environmental sense” [ 36 ], cultural conditions can impact the overall effectiveness of psychedelic on health.…”

“…Although focused on issues of race inequality, the modified cultural set-and-setting theoretical framework expands to include structural inequalities that may further negatively impact the sequelae of psychedelics on health beyond the cultural interpretation during use. Researchers theorize that systemic inequality will affect the entire relationship that people have with psychedelics, both upstream before use and downstream after use [ 34 ]. Specifically, while initial researchers proposed that cultural conditions could affect the perceptions of psychedelics during use [ 38 ], the modified theory suggests that structural inequalities could also affect access to other resources or exposure to trauma/stress post psychedelic use which more quickly diminishes the efficacy of the drugs [ 34 ].…”