Improving Psychedelic Harm Reduction and Therapy: Community Perspectives from Individuals Who Use Recreationally and for Mental Health Purposes.

Abstract

There is still inconsistency in psychedelic research across the United States. There are gaps in our understanding of the psychedelic community's perception of topics including reasons for use and set/setting. The goal is to utilize these findings to produce better quantitative research, to ask the right questions of the right communities. This qualitative study organized focus groups from people who use psychedelics for: 1) recreational/spiritual and 2) mental health reasons. We conducted 10 focus groups with 29 people. The data were analyzed using Grounded Theory. A primary coder (JJ) inductively coded the transcribed audio recordings, and a secondary coder (CJ) deductively coded the data using JJ's codebook. Four themes emerged. We learned that people who use for recreational reasons often still use with purposive intent. Secondly, there is evidence of preparation and integration with their use. In those that use for mental health reasons, it was not uncommon to have a history of prior psychedelic use, and those individuals also had concerns about access to psychedelics for others who needed mental health treatment. These themes provide useful information for researchers to develop data collection tools for harm reduction and therapy techniques that are grounded in community perspectives and supportive literature.