President Trump moved this month to expedite research and increase access to some psychedelic substances for the treatment of serious mental health disorders. These substances “could save lives,” he said in an executive order—especially for veterans and other high-risk groups.
Some of the best data available on psychedelic use and policy come from RAND. Researchers at RAND have studied the options—and the trade-offs—as some states begin to ease access to psychedelics. They also have produced some of the only nationally representative research available on public attitudes toward specific psychedelic substances.
Beau Kilmer oversees this work as codirector of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center and professor of policy analysis at the RAND School of Public Policy. His research has ranged from cannabis legalization to 24/7 Sobriety programs to the explosive spread of synthetic opioids like fentanyl. “Our goal is to inform these conversations,” he said, “to be a resource for policymakers and other stakeholders, helping them to understand what we know and what we don't, and to walk them through the pros and cons of various policy options.”
Do Americans support legalizing the use of psychedelics?
It depends on which substance you're talking about. One of the contributions of our research was asking about specific psychedelic substances, not just psychedelics as a class of drugs. We found that 23 percent of American adults support the legal use of psilocybin “magic” mushrooms. But for LSD and MDMA (also known as ecstasy or Molly), it was closer to 10 percent.
But it also depends on the reason for use. Our survey went beyond the simple “yes/no/don't know” questions. When respondents were asked about reasons for allowing legal use, addressing a mental or physical health condition was the most endorsed reason for psilocybin mushrooms, LSD, and MDMA.
Some of the best data available on psychedelic use and policy come from RAND.
You've pointed out in your research that we've been here before. How does the debate over psychedelics parallel what we saw with cannabis?
Support for the legal use of cannabis was right around 25 percent for years. Then it really began to escalate after 1995. That's when California passed its medical cannabis law and other states started to follow. I don't know if psilocybin mushrooms are going to follow a similar trajectory. But support for legal use is close to that 25 percent mark. And we're starting to see a few states legalizing the use of some psychedelics for medical and non-medical purposes.
What can we learn from how cannabis policy evolved?
The importance of knowing which products people are using, how often, and how much. It's typical to just ask, well, have you used a particular drug and on how many days did you use it? But even among people who use cannabis every day, you might have some who are under the influence most of the time, and others who just take a gummy at night. Those different use patterns have different health and policy consequences. With psychedelics now, we've started asking not just about the frequency of using specific substances, but about the quantities people are consuming.
And you've found that people are increasingly microdosing psychedelics. What does that mean—and what does that mean for developing effective policy?
There's no standard definition, but I think of it as taking a very small dose without the intention of substantially altering your state of consciousness. Some people put it at 5 percent or 10 percent of a typical dose. And what we found in our 2025 survey was that roughly 10 million Americans reported microdosing psilocybin, LSD, or MDMA in the past year. That has very different consequences than taking a full dose. It really shows how important it is to collect more information about how much people are using—and their intentions for using—these substances.
The Trump administration points specifically to veterans as a key group that could benefit from increased access to psychedelics. What do we know about veteran attitudes here?
Right now, very little. But we're going through the veteran data from our 2025 survey as we speak. We actually over-sampled veterans and asked about not only their use of different psychedelics, but also their policy preferences. That should be coming out in the next few months. So, stay tuned.
This issue has been getting a lot of attention. What do people misunderstand about psychedelics?
The past decade has seen a big increase in clinical trials that test the safety and efficacy of different psychedelic substances to treat various mental and physical health conditions. But people don't always realize there was a lot of clinical research going on in the 1950s and 1960s. Then there was this big backlash, and the research stalled for about 25 years.
Fast-forward to today. When I talk to people working in this space, I hear a real concern that if some of these states get too far ahead with their psychedelic policies and there are some high-profile adverse events or harms, it could create another backlash. That might stifle clinical research again.
What we're doing here at RAND isn't to come out and say, yes, you should legalize, or no, you shouldn't. It's to help decisionmakers think through all the different policy options and to understand the potential trade-offs.
