Mortality Increased With Hospital-Based Care for Hallucinogen Use

MONDAY, March 3, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Hospital-based care for hallucinogen use is associated with increased mortality, according to a study published online March 3 in CMAJ, the journal of the Canadian Medical Association.

Daniel T. Myran, M.D., M.P.H., from the University of Ottawa in Ontario, Canada, and colleagues conducted a retrospective cohort study using linked health administrative data for all people aged 15 years and older living in Ontario, Canada, from 2006 to 2022. Overall and cause-specific mortality risks were compared for members of the general population and those with incident acute care involving hallucinogens or other substances.

The analyses included 11,415,713 people; 0.07 percent had incident acute care involving hallucinogens. The researchers found that in a matched analysis involving 77,101 people with a median follow-up of seven years, acute care involving hallucinogens was associated with an increased risk for all-cause mortality within five years compared with the general population (absolute risks, 6.1 versus 0.6 percent; hazard ratio, 2.57). Similar elevations in risk were seen in analyses excluding people with comorbid mental or substance use disorders (hazard ratio, 3.25). Relative to the general population, people with acute care involving hallucinogens had a significantly increased risk for death by unintentional drug poisoning, suicide, respiratory disease, and cancer (hazard ratios, 2.03, 5.23, 2.46, and 2.88, respectively).

“We found that people requiring acute care for hallucinogen use are at substantially elevated risk of premature death compared with the general population,” the authors write. “Despite a resurgence of interest in identifying potential therapeutic effects of hallucinogens, major gaps exist in our understanding of associated risks.”

Several authors disclosed ties to the biopharmaceutical industry.

Abstract/Full Text