National survey estimates 8.1 million US adults used psilocybin in a year

The estimate

About 3.1% of US adults (95% CI 2.9% to 3.3%) used psilocybin in the past 12 months, an estimated 8.12 million people (7.58 million to 8.66 million), according to a research letter in JAMA Network Open.¹ The article's publication record gives September 29, 2026. PubMed lists it under the September 2026 issue with a September 1 date.¹²

The data come from the 2025 National Survey Investigating Hallucinogenic Trends (NSIHT), a double opt-in online panel of US adults in all 50 states, weighted to a nationally representative survey.¹ Of 1,964 adults in the analysis, 1,151 reported past-year psilocybin use. The letter also covers LSD, MDMA, ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT.¹

What users reported

Every health outcome in the letter is self-reported: people said whether their health changed in the past year and whether they put that down to the drug.¹ Among past-year psilocybin users:

• 51.2% said their mental health improved, and 24.0% said their physical health improved.
• 4.7% said their mental health got worse, and 6.2% said their physical health got worse.
• 16.2% reported using health care services in the past year that they attributed to psilocybin.
• Of 667 people who had used it in the past 3 months, 75.6% reported at least 1 of 13 listed adverse effects that they attributed to it.

About a third (33.1%) said they used psilocybin to treat medical symptoms, and 66.2% reported using other substances as well.¹ Psilocybin had the lowest reported rates of worsening health and health care use of the five drugs. Ibogaine had the highest: 74.2% of its users reported health care use they attributed to it.¹ Because psilocybin, LSD and MDMA are more widely used, the authors note that the estimated number of adults reporting adverse outcomes was greatest for those three.¹

Why "reported" matters

The authors say the cross-sectional design rules out conclusions about cause. Differences between groups, such as psychiatric history, and the use of other drugs at the same time may explain some patterns, people may blame or credit different drugs differently, and memory can be wrong.¹ A user saying their mental health improved isn't evidence that psilocybin improved it, and the same holds for reported harms. Placebo-controlled trials are a different kind of evidence; see psilocybin therapy and trials.

What it means for Nevada

The letter doesn't report state figures. The closest Nevada number comes from a different federal survey. In the 2023 to 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 3.87% of Nevadans aged 12 and older, about 107,000 people, had used any hallucinogen in the past year. Among adults 18 and older it was 4.07%, about 102,000, and among 18 to 25 year olds 7.53%.³ That survey counts all hallucinogens, not psilocybin alone, and uses different methods, so the two figures can't be compared directly.

Three of the letter's six authors work at Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Safety, a division of Denver Health.¹ The Nevada Poison Center's website is run by the same division and lists the NSIHT among its research programs.⁴

However many Americans use it, psilocybin is a Schedule I drug under Nevada and federal law.⁵⁶ In an emergency, call 911. If someone is sick after taking mushrooms or any other drug, Poison Control at 1-800-222-1222 can help.⁴ Our help page lists more lines, and Nevada psilocybin law explains the penalties.