doi: 10.1177/0269881113513851 J Psychopharmacol January 2014 vol. 28 no. 1 said:
Hallucinogen [classical psychedelic] use predicts reduced recidivism among substance-involved offenders under community corrections supervision
Peter S Hendricks1
C Brendan Clark2
Matthew W Johnson3
Kevin R Fontaine1
Karen L Cropsey2
1Department of Health Behavior, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, USA
2Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurobiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, USA
3Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA
Peter S Hendricks, School of Public Health, Department of Health Behavior, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 227L Ryals Public Health Building, 1665 University Blvd., Birmingham, AL 35294, USA. Email: XXX{at}uab.edu
Abstract
Hallucinogen-based interventions may benefit substance use populations, but contemporary data informing the impact of hallucinogens on addictive behavior are scarce. Given that many individuals in the criminal justice system engage in problematic patterns of substance use, hallucinogen treatments also may benefit criminal justice populations. However, the relationship between hallucinogen use and criminal recidivism is unknown. In this longitudinal study, we examined the relationship between naturalistic hallucinogen use and recidivism among individuals under community corrections supervision with a history of substance involvement (n=25,622). We found that hallucinogen use predicted a reduced likelihood of supervision failure (e.g. noncompliance with legal requirements including alcohol and other drug use) while controlling for an array of potential confounding factors (odds ratio (OR)=0.60 (0.46, 0.79)). Our results suggest that hallucinogens may promote alcohol and other drug abstinence and prosocial behavior in a population with high rates of recidivism.
Keywords: Hallucinogen psychedelic, psilocybin, lysergic acid diethylamide, recidivism, criminal justice, positive psychology