Others investigate which drugs might elicit the closest experience to a dream-like state or how to recreate the “chemical induction of synaesthesia”, the neurological condition where our senses get mixed up and we can see noises or taste sounds. By becoming one of the most predominant sources of drug information and experiences online, in only five years after its launch, Erowid reached 100,000 page views per day. “They used digital technology and the early internet to create a space for something that didn’t exist before – and the space itself changed psychedelic culture dramatically,” adds Erik Davis, an author who has written extensively about psychedelic counterculture, and friend to the founders. “Erowid created an environment for people to connect and share information, but also one for younger people, experimenting for the first time, to meet the equivalent of the older brother who’s already into the scene.”
Psychedelics were mostly of interest to the countercultural community of self-styled “psychonauts” – willing human guinea pigs who, with chemical aids, dived into their own psyches and reported the results. Aside from a handful of in-person conferences here and there, organised research slowed to a halt, largely due to the tight regulation that made getting approval for studies involving controlled substances difficult. But perhaps most intriguing of all are the 45,000-plus trip reports in the “Experience Vault”. These hallucinatory tales, with titles such as “Tripping Alone on 1.5 Grams From Hell”, “The Weekend At The Edge Of The Universe” and “The Thumbprint”, where an unfortunate soul loses their mind on a drug related to LSD called AL-LAD, do not just make for idle internet fodder. They have become vital for academic research, especially for esoteric and illegal substances where clinical data does not exist or is challenging to obtain. And if their enthusiastic reception was any indication, it appears that the NIH is primed to start anew on research on molecules, receptors, and neural systems that mediate the actions of psychedelic drugs.
The modified compound bound to the same serotonin receptors as DMT, but in a slightly different manner. Thus, a research team led by Dr. David Olson at the University of California, Davis set out to design a drug that retained LSD’s ability to promote neuron growth without the hallucinogenic potential. Results of their effort, which was funded in part by NIH, appeared in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on April 14, 2025. Federal funding on psychedelics would remain dry for 50 years, until 2021 when Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore) was awarded a nearly $4 million NIH grant to investigate the potential effects of psilocybin on tobacco addiction.
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Though more research is needed, scientists theorize that these substances promote brain changes that have the potential to promote healthy thought patterns,13 potentially supporting the effectiveness of talk therapy. NIDA is conducting and supporting preclinical (laboratory) research into psilocybin’s effects on the brain and body, and whether there are similar substances that may have the same benefits without side-effects such as hallucinations. The institute also supports clinical investigations into psilocybin as a therapeutic substance. These include studies on its effectiveness and safety as a treatment for substance use disorders and to help people quit smoking. More studies are needed to better understand how psychedelic and dissociative drugs work. While researchers debate how to describe these drugs and how specific drugs should be classified, they generally group them according to what is known about how they work in the brain.
Advancing reduction of drug use as an endpoint in addiction treatment trials
The emergency and referral resources listed above are available to individuals located in the United States and are not operated by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). NIDA is a biomedical research organization and does not provide personalized medical advice, treatment, counseling, or legal consultation. Information provided by NIDA is not a substitute for professional medical care or legal consultation. In June 2022, NIDA’s Office of Translational Initiatives and Program Innovations also announced a new program to support small businesses to develop psychedelic-based therapies for substance use disorders. Current medications for schizophrenia are effective at treating hallucinations and delusions. But they are less effective at treating other symptoms, like the inability to feel pleasure and impaired cognitive function.
When the team administered JRT to mice, it increased the density of dendritic spines and synapses. A single dose of JRT in mice could restore the loss of dendritic spine density caused by chronic exposure to stress hormones. “The courage that Earth and Fire had to move in public at a time of fear and suspicion in the dominant culture, really went a major way towards destigmatising the field of psychedelics,” says Doblin. And so this small, Web 1.0 side project that predated Wikipedia – with its stubbornly retro aesthetics unchanged for decades and tiny coterie of full-time staff – brought psychonauts together to create a whole new space. In doing so, it shifted the culture, played its part in legitimising psychedelics in the eyes of the broader public, and has an outsized impact to this day. Like other subcultures, the early internet allowed people with previously niche interests to find one another for the first time.
Frontiers in Addiction Research, 2025
- Changes A person taking psilocybin may have what’s called a mystical experience, where they enter a dreamlike, euphoric state, perhaps having visions or reliving memories.
- This basic research plays an important role in identifying their health effects and potential therapeutic uses.
- The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 classified psilocybin, the main psychoactive constituent of psychedelic mushrooms, as a Schedule I substance—denoted as having no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.
- These hallucinatory tales, with titles such as “Tripping Alone on 1.5 Grams From Hell”, “The Weekend At The Edge Of The Universe” and “The Thumbprint”, where an unfortunate soul loses their mind on a drug related to LSD called AL-LAD, do not just make for idle internet fodder.
Psychedelic drugs, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), are characterized as classic hallucinogens that can cause users to see images, hear sounds, and feel sensations that seem real but do not exist. Such drugs include the synthetic hallucinogen LSD and natural products such as mescaline (peyote cactus) and psilocybin (“magic mushrooms”). Taking an adulterated drug can lead to unexpected and unwelcome side effects and may increase its potential health risks. Over the past decade, illegally made opioids like fentanyl have been increasingly found psychedelic and dissociative drugs nida in the drug supply, and have contributed to a dramatic rise in drug overdose deaths in the United States. With the growth of the online drug market, new entrants to the psychoactive pantheon are being created all the time.
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To the surprise of its founders, wrote Earth and Fire in a 10-year retrospective in 2005, the daily visits to the website skyrocketed into the thousands after they submitted Erowid for search engine listing. “Erowid really represents the spirit of a devoted data nerd, a librarian with a love of dry, organised, clear information on the one hand – but also this sense of courage and creating an inventive space for culture generation,” Davis says. It laid out a new model that demonstrated how respecting data and providing trustworthy sources could serve a role in harm reduction and “support a community that can be very non-technical, crazy and wild”, he says. Guided by the DMT results, the team tried switching the places of two atoms in LSD. This resulted in a compound that had the same 3D structure as LSD but altered the way it bound to its target receptor, similar to the modified DMT.
Physical Side Effects
Updates regarding government operating status and resumption of normal operations can be found at opm.gov. Erowid’s enormous collection of psychoactive experiences helped it become a point of reference for professions of all stripes, not only academics. Physicians and doctors use Erowid, especially in treating patients who may have used novel psychoactive substances – so-called research chemicals that are yet to be regulated and can mystify due to their absence of literature. But some also worry about the kind of information available on Erowid, as it includes details on preparing and using drugs that could prove to be harmful.
- In a few short years, no longer were psychedelic enthusiasts Erowid’s main audience – it seemed anyone with a web connection and a micro-dose of curiosity was a potential visitor too.
- Today, the psychedelic science industry is reportedly worth $3bn (£2.25bn) and only growing.
- The World Health Organisation reads Erowid, as does the UK government, which has cited the Vaults on the harms of methoxetamine and zopiclone.
Changes A person taking psilocybin may have what’s called a mystical experience, where they enter a dreamlike, euphoric state, perhaps having visions or reliving memories. They may have a different sense of self, feeling that they have no personal boundaries and are one with the universe—what some researchers call “oceanic self-boundlessness”.4,6 This experience can be blissful, but it may also be frightening, and cause fear or panic. Really, says Leor Roseman, senior lecturer and psychedelic researcher at Exeter University in the UK, it’s this “medicalisation” of psychedelics that has allowed substances to become “a conversation in every household and not just a taboo”. The World Health Organisation reads Erowid, as does the UK government, which has cited the Vaults on the harms of methoxetamine and zopiclone. The US Drug Enforcement Administration keeps an eye on Erowid as well, and has cited the Experience Vault in proposals to regulate new substances. A UK House of Lords committee report even cites an essay, hosted on Erowid, about the psychoactive properties of nutmeg.
The team tested JRT’s ability to bind different receptors found in the central nervous system. While LSD can bind to many receptor types, JRT bound only to serotonin receptors. Interactions with a specific serotonin receptor, the 5-HT2A receptor, are responsible for both the plasticity-promoting and hallucinogenic effects of psychedelics. JRT was potent at activating this receptor, although to a lesser extent than LSD. This is particularly true for people with schizophrenia or a family history of psychosis. Hallucinations and delusions are a symptom of schizophrenia that hallucinogenic drugs can make worse.
Are psychedelic and dissociative drugs addictive? Can people experience withdrawal?
Centers for Disease Controls and Prevention (CDC), some commercial products such as candies marketed as containing psilocybin have also been found to contain toxic chemicals and have caused severe illness. Among people aged 12 or older in 2021, 2.6% (or about 7.4 million people) reported using hallucinogens in the past 12 months. BBC Click visits CES 2025 to find out about the latest health tech, from medical tools to well-being devices. “And I’ve found it invaluable, especially at a time when there were no resources other than the underground. That’s enabled a lot of science.”
“Erowid is one of the few websites where emergency workers or doctors can find information on new substances,” says Nicolas Langlitz, a professor of anthropologist at the New School for Social Research in New York City. “Erowid serves as a substitute for scientific research,” he says, adding that some scraps of toxicology data may be available elsewhere but, as far as effects on humans go, Erowid’s a goldmine. Davis and others say Erowid’s large-scale data-led approach made the website a useful repository for all sorts of information that would find their way into official assessments on toxicology, interactions between drugs or even just molecular breakdowns of chemical compounds. Back in 1995, when Erowid was founded, psychedelics were very much of the underground. This was a hostile time for drug reform, just over a decade since US president Ronald Reagan had expanded the war on drugs.
Now, the Experience Vaults are a “fascinating record of human experience, and that’s incredibly valuable”, Davis adds. Fruit bodies of the hallucinogenic mushroom Psilocybe semilanceata, which produces psilocybin and other psychoactive compounds. Increasing the number of people achieving long-term recovery from SUDs is a national policy priority and a major goal of… There is also the risk of misidentifying mushrooms and taking a toxic mushroom instead of one containing psilocybin.16 According to the U.S.