Study Shows Mushrooms and Cannabis are Safest Substances

According to the Global Drug Survey for this year, psychedelic mushrooms and cannabis are the safest recreational substances out there.

12,000 people interviewed reported that they consumed mushrooms in 2016, and only 0.2 of them said they needed emergency medical treatment after ingesting the mushrooms that they consumed. This is much lower percentage than substances like LSD, MDMA and cocaine, which had high reports of hospitalization.

“Death from toxicity is almost unheard of with poisoning with more dangerous fungi being a much greater risk in terms of serious harms,” The Guardian stated when discussing the results regarding mushrooms.

Cannabis came in second, with users only reporting a 0.6 percent rate of emergency room visits. This could be due to the fact that many first-time or new users in legal areas mix cannabis with alcohol or are not sure what to expect and go to the hospital out of concern that they got “too high.”

On the other hand, one of the most dangerous drugs out there is synthetic cannabis, which sent 3.2 percent of surveyed users to the hospital. That substance is similar to the harmfulness of crystal meth, and caused 4.8 percent of interviewed people to seek medical attention. Even alcohol, pretty much the only legal substance in the survey, sent 1.3 percent of users to the hospital, a drastic number when compared with psychedelic mushrooms and cannabis. The survey also points out that seeking medical treatment can mean different things for different drugs, but still shows major disparity in rates of hospital visits between substances.

In total, 120,000 participants in 50 different countries take this survey. It is currently the world’s largest drug survey, and therefore a reliable source of information. The survey is also noteworthy because it asks about negative effects, allowing users to be brutally honest. Hopefully the results of this survey will help tip the global populations even further toward acceptance of legalization and cannabis.