RAND estimates millions of Americans microdosed psychedelics in 2025; New Jersey to commit $6 million to psilocybin research; new bills in New Hampshire and Iowa
Plus: Most Americans still feel neutral to negative about psychedelics, and New Mexico medical psilocybin program committees announced
Happy Friday and welcome back to The Microdose, an independent journalism newsletter brought to you by the U.C. Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics.
RAND estimates millions of Americans microdosed psychedelics in 2025
In a new report, the RAND Corporation estimates that about 10 million U.S. adults microdosed psilocybin, LSD, or MDMA in 2025. The figure is based on the thinktank’s survey of a nationally representative group of 10,122 adults in the U.S. about their drug use, and scaling those figures to the entirety of the U.S. population. If their estimates do in fact represent the national prevalence of microdosing psychedelics, microdosing is hugely popular in the U.S.. While many people have anecdotally reported experiencing benefits from psychedelic microdoses, and studies surveying microdosers about their subjective experiences typically report that people who microdose say they feel more creative or in a better mood after microdosing. Recent placebo-controlled trials that have found the effects of microdosing may be no greater than those of placebo.
In addition to disclosing their microdosing use, participants in the RAND survey also reported taking a variety of psychedelics in the last year. Psilocybin — both mushrooms and synthetic — was the most popular, followed by MDMA and its chemical cousin MDA, and, surprisingly, Amanita muscaria in third. Amanita muscaria, a mushroom that contains the psychoactive compound muscimol, is not a traditional psychedelic, but it’s known to produce somewhat unpleasant trips, according to Kevin Feeney, an Amanita expert and anthropologist at Central Washington University we interviewed in 2024. The RAND Corporation report did not include details about where survey participants were sourcing their drugs; Amanita is frequently advertised as an ingredient in mushroom chocolates or candies, but such edibles are often mislabeled.
New Jersey to commit $6 million to psilocybin research; new bills in New Hampshire and Iowa; grassroots group in Washington State suggests amendments
On Tuesday, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed bill S2283, which will provide $6 million from the state’s general fund for a two-year pilot program to conduct psilocybin research. Psychedelics veterans group VETS hailed the bill’s passage as a victory. Two of the organization’s grant recipients testified in favor of the bill, and it becoming law is a testament to the growing power of veterans groups in U.S. psychedelics legislation. VETS also threw its weight behind an initiative which secured $100 million for ibogaine research in Texas in 2025.
New Hampshire legislators are considering two psychedelics bills: HB 1796 and HB 1809, both of which propose a medical psilocybin program run by the state’s Department of Health and Human Services. The former bill includes much more detail about the potential program’s parameters, laying out details about licensing psilocybin manufacturers and testing products, education requirements for qualified medical providers, and establishing a team of five new employees to run the program. The latter bill includes far fewer details, merely tasking the health department with adopting rules later.
Last Thursday, legislators in Iowa introduced HF 2085, which would allow people to “recommend, possess, use, dispense, deliver, transport, or administer psilocybin” if the psilocybin is produced and administered in compliance with state-approved policies. The lengthy bill includes detailed standards for the potential program, which would include establishing a licensing board to review applications for psilocybin cultivators and qualified medical providers.
And in more state news, as we reported last week, legislators in Washington state are considering two bills: Senate Bill 5201 / House Bill 1433, which proposes a state-regulated psychedelic services program similar to those in Oregon and Colorado, and Senate Bill 5921, drafted by the national group Coalition for Better Community Health, which proposes a medical psilocybin program overseen by the Department of Health. Grassroots psychedelic advocacy group REACH WA released a statement this week outlining the strengths and shortcomings of both bills, along with recommendations for amendments. The group raised concerns that SB 5921’s medical framework and its “extensive regulatory requirements” would make it difficult for people to receive care - and that its standards are designed for the development of synthetic psilocybin. The organization recommends the bill be amended to allow for protections and use of “natural” psychedelics. REACH WA also recommends those protections for SB 5201.
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Most Americans still feel neutral to negative about psychedelics
In other polling data, a survey conducted by analytics company Ipsos and the news and analysis site Psychedelic Alpha found mixed attitudes among U.S. adults towards psychedelics. The survey included a nationally represented group of over 1,000 Americans, conducted over three days in November 2025. Of that group, 44% had neutral or mixed opinions about psychedelics being used in mental health care, while the rest were split between expressing positive (28%) and negative (28%) attitudes.
The survey also revealed that 7 in 10 people had not seen any psychedelics media coverage over the last 90 days — but that among people who had seen information about psychedelics, the majority reported seeing positive information about the substances. Unsurprisingly, of that group, those under 35 were most likely to have seen psychedelics information on social media, whereas those over 65 said they had encountered it in news broadcasts or newspapers.
New Mexico medical psilocybin program committees announced
New Mexico’s psilocybin program is getting underway, with the established goal of being available to the public in one year. Last Thursday, the state program announced meeting times for its new advisory board committees. During Oregon and Colorado’s psilocybin program roll-outs, the committees’ foci were representative of the burgeoning programs’ priorities and needs. New Mexico’s committees also give us a glimpse into what its state leaders are paying attention to. The current committees include:
Patient qualification and safety: responsible for recommending which medical conditions could benefit from psilocybin treatment and establishing patient safety and exclusion criteria.
Dosage, administration, and clinical practice: responsible for developing recommendations for dosing, therapeutic structure, and protocols.
Education and training: responsible for recommending required training and education for practitioners.
Research and continuous improvement: responsible for developing guidelines on data collection and harm reduction practices.
Propagation: responsible for developing best practices for cultivating, handling, and testing psilocybin mushrooms.
Equity, access, and cultural considerations: responsible for ensuring access to “rural, frontier, and underserved areas [of] New Mexico, including but not limited to telehealth-enabled screening and rural training.”
End of life: responsible for developing recommendations for safety criteria and coordination to allow end-of-life patients to access psilocybin.
Over the last year, former Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema has devoted herself to ibogaine advocacy. She is now being sued by the ex-wife of her bodyguard Matthew Ammel for allegedly encouraging him to leave his family. The suit alleges Sinema paid for Ammel to receive psychedelic therapy and encouraged him to bring MDMA on a work trip so she could guide him through a trip. In a piece called “More than you want to know about Kyrsten Sinema’s alleged psychedelic affair,” Ecstatic Integration’s Jules Evans details Sinema’s and Ammel’s recent psychedelic connections.
Monica Schweickle, founder of Australian firm The Psychedelic Consultancy, joins Psychedelic Alpha in reviewing Australia’s grand experiment allowing psilocybin and MDMA treatment. While a Freedom of Information request revealed that zero severe adverse events had been reported across over 130 patients, there are other concerns: treatment still remains extremely expensive, and many are calling for more inclusion of Indigenous therapists to ensure culturally responsive care.
The Denver Department of Public Health & Environment has removed PolkaDot brand chocolate bars from several Denver retailers, reports the city’s alt-weekly Westword. According to the public health department, the bars contained psilocybin and psilocin, as well as 4-ACO-DET, 4-HO-DET, and 4-HO-MET, all of which are not federally scheduled but are known as psilocybin analogs that produce psychoactive effects.
Law enforcement in Europe has conducted a massive drug ring bust, arresting more than 85 people operating 24 labs across multiple countries that manufactured methamphetamine and MDMA, according to CBS News.
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