PSYCH NEWS - 26/01/2026

The first psych news of 2026 is predictably fast-paced and worldwide. Regardless of geopolitical rumblings, seemingly just about everywhere, the psychedelic renaissance continues apace. New global pharmacovigilance data confirm that physical complications from the use of psychedelics are extremely rare. This is supported by data from Australia, showing zero serious adverse effects in the first year of its national rescheduling program. In the UK, the debate as to whether or not the NHS should implement psychedelic therapies is intensifying ahead of the arrival of phase 3 trial results. Legislative momentum is increasing across the US, as the FDA is accelerating its review of commercial psilocybin therapy.

The diversification of the psychedelic landscape is also continuing, with further research into far shorter duration compounds such as 5-MeO-DMT. Non-hallucinogenic alternatives, such as AI-generated, personalised, virtual psychedelics, are also being considered, alongside wider cultural shifts in attitudes towards psychedelics as a whole.

A comprehensive new analysis of global pharmacovigilance data, published in Psychiatry Research, is providing a much clearer picture of the true impact and risks of psychedelic use. Utilising VigiBase, the World Health Organisation’s global database, researchers were able to identify adverse reports associated with psychedelics.

The reports covered a variety of substances – LSD, psilocybin, DMT, mescaline, and MDMA. The data shows that users may frequently report psychiatric struggles or difficulties regulating the nervous system. These are the classic symptoms of a “bad trip”: intense anxiety. However, physiological complications are extremely rare. Reports of cardiac arrest, organ damage, for example, only account for a tiny percentage of the total data. This reinforces the widely held belief that psychedelics as a whole are physically benign for the vast majority of people.

The study did reveal a large number of reports related to substance abuse and dependence. While this may initially seem to contradict the usual perception of psychedelics – that they have little to no abuse potential – these numbers are likely inflated. Researchers suggested that these numbers are likely distorted by the prevalence of polysubstance use. This is where individuals use psychedelics alongside other drugs such as alcohol or opioids, for example. The Vigibase data lacks the granularity to separate the effects of the psychedelic from others. In recreational settings, it is rare that psychedelics are taken alone. The concurrent use of known high-risk substances makes it difficult to ascertain the specific risks of the psychedelic itself.

These findings, as a whole, provide significant evidence that the existing body of evidence illustrating psychedelics’ relatively benign nature is accurate. However, due to the substances' illegal status, it is important to acknowledge the inherent limitations of the study. Voluntary reporting or underreporting is likely, and the purity of anything consumed is questionable. Nevertheless, the study does lend further weight to the perceived safety profile of these substances when observed in laboratory settings, suggesting that this safety extends to real-world use as well.

In 2023 Autralia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) decided to reschedule psilocybin and MDMA. This permitted specifically authorised psychiatrists to provide medicines containing these substances to treat certain mental health conditions.

This a profound shift in the landscape of mental health treatment in Australia. While the initial rollout of the psychedelic-assisted therapy program (PAP) was extremely cautious, 2025 was a turning point. The first 18 months of the program saw fewer than 100 patients being treated with psychedelics. This was in part due to early issues, such as logistics and regulatory hurdles. However, by September 2025, treatment numbers had risen to 87 patients for the MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD, and 47 for psilocybin-assisted therapy for treatment-resistant depression (TRD).

Through a Freedom of Information request, The Psychedelic Consultancy was able to reveal an incredibly powerful statistic. Throughout the entire initial run of PAP, zero serious adverse events were reported! This (just like the previous story) provides excellent evidence that real-world usage of psychedelics has an excellent safety profile. Confirming that this is the case outside of the context of clinical trials is invaluable.

Looking ahead to 2026, the programme is preparing to scale significantly. Projections suggest that there will soon be the potential to treat over 1000 patients annually. Achieving this will require tackling workforce issues such as the need for a larger number of authorised psychiatrists. Alongside this, there will need to be a dramatic increase in the therapeutic workforce. There is also a greater push for inclusivity in the program: including indigenous cultural training in the education of upcoming practitioners is vital.

Australia’s unique model places psychotherapy at its heart, setting a precedent for how these powerful substances can be responsibly integrated.

2026 has opened with a surge of activity across the US. Multiple states are in the process of introducing bills aimed at regulating, or even decriminalising, psychedelics. This reflects a growing national consensus that mental health crises require new therapeutic approaches. In states like California, Massachusetts, and New York, the momentum is particularly strong. Lawmakers are proposing sophisticated frameworks to safely regulate the therapeutic use of psilocybin and other psychedelic substances. These models follow on from similar pioneering efforts in states like Oregon and Colorado.

At the federal level, the landscape is also changing rapidly. As we discussed in the final Psych News of 2025, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has quite significantly increased the production quotas for several psychedelics – psilocybin, 5-MeO-DMT, methylone – for 2026. This is designed to support the increasing number of clinical trials related to the potential therapeutic uses of psychedelics. However, this push is complicated by varying state-level legislation and continued federal prohibition.

Alongside attempts to increase the therapeutic access to these substances across the US, there are increased legislative discussions of the potential for decriminalisation. This is combined with increased focus on the protection of indigenous practices. Several bills now include language that is specifically designed to protect the spiritual use of psychedelic plants like peyote.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is an extremely complicated psychiatric condition involving disruptions in a wide variety of neurotransmitters. It is a disorder that is characterised by intrusive, obsessive thoughts and/or compulsive behaviours. Current treatment means, such as antidepressants, in the form of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), are only effective for a part of the population suffering from OCD. Roughly 40-60% of patients fail to respond adequately to the medication.

A recent review, published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, indicates that new psychedelic treatments show promise for treating the disorder, while cannabis does not.

In recent years, both psychedelics and cannabinoids have been raised as potential means to tackle OCD. Dr Michael Van Ameringen, a psychiatry professor at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, and lead author of the review, stated the purpose of the review was to:

Hone down and really understand, is there evidence for these things that have been talked about to be used as the next step treatments?

The review provides a critical comparison between the evidence that cannabinoids and psychedelics may be solutions, finding marked differences between available clinical support. Despite a large amount of public interest and anecdotal reporting, researchers found no convincing evidence that natural or synthetic cannabinoids are of use. In contrast to this, psychedelics like psilocybin, LSD, MDMA, and DMT are showing potential. Psilocybin in particular has shown wide-ranging improvements for previously treatment-resistant patients (albeit in small-scale trials).

Despite these positive indicators, the study emphasises just how early we are in the field of psychedelic research as a whole. Prior to any kind of consensus on psychedelics’ potential efficacy in this context, large-scale, randomised clinical trials are a necessity.

While studies of psilocybin and other psychedelics have shown promise in humans for treating conditions like PTSD and TRD, results in mouse studies are less consistent. This is a potentially huge issue to overcome.

A significant study, involving five San Francisco-based labs and 200 mice, found that psilocybin caused repeatable effects on mouse behaviour. This included increased anxiety- and avoidance-related behaviours and decreased fear expression. However, psilocybin had no ”replicable effects 24 hours post psilocybin administration on reducing anxiety…or facilitating fear extinction learning. Additionally, [researchers] were unable to observe…alterations in social preference or social reward learning.”

This discrepancy with the confirmed positives observed in human trials is striking. Researchers argue that this issue lies not with the data itself, but with the means of ascertaining results. Mice's behaviour is monitored with tests such as a “forced swim” test. These models of testing were initially developed as simple pharmacological screening tools. They are not an accurate means of emulating complex human psychiatric conditions.

Critics of the current models point out that the massive effect of the novelty of an experiment on animal behaviour makes repeatability nigh-on impossible. However, newer, theory-driven models are beginning to bridge the gap. Researchers have developed tasks that measure “negative affective bias” (a tendency to interpret experiences in a negative light). Mice are trained to associate specific stimuli with positive or negative states. 

Studies using these models have shown that psilocybin can reverse these negative preferences. This appears to mirror the neuroplastic effects observed in humans, facilitating “relearning” and rewiring negative patterns of behaviour. Using methods such as these, the field aims to move beyond simple drug screening towards a thorough mechanistic understanding of exactly how psychedelics affect the brain.

Psilocybin therapy has taken a substantial lead in the race to commercialise psychedelic medicine. In January 2026, the FDA, in the US, became much more heavily involved with key players in the industry, such as Compass Pathways. Reports suggest that the FDA has accelerated its review of psilocybin treatment for severe depression by 9 to 12 months. Compass Pathways is hopeful that this shift will mean that it will secure agency approval by the close of 2026. They look set to potentially bring the first “classic” psychedelic to the US market.

The increased pace of regulatory changes coincides with a surge in non-clinical use of psychedelics. Over the past year, data show that over 11 million US adults used psilocybin. Nearly 70% reported microdosing at least once. This creates some continuing tension between the burgeoning medical market and widespread unregulated use.

While the regulatory pathway to these substances becoming more easily available looks increasingly clearer, the actual rollout comes with some severe hurdles. The necessity of medical supervision for psychedelic experiences, which last for multiple hours, is nothing short of dramatic. The challenge of training enough licensed therapists, integrating this with the US insurance system, etc.

Despite these challenges, the momentum behind psilocybin-assisted therapy to tackle PTSD and TRD remains the sector’s primary focus in 2026.

A recent study published in Scientific Reports has provided a detailed map of individuals’ experiences of intranasal 5-MeO-DMT. Researchers interviewed 40 psychedelic-naive individuals to chart the onset, peak, and comedown of the drug’s effects.

Onset: Effects typically begin within just 2 minutes of application.

Peak: The experience reaches its height between 8 and 15 minutes.

Overall Duration: The most profound consciousness-altering effects mostly conclude within 45 to 60 minutes.

Comedown: Some participants reported subtle effects lasting for up to 90 minutes.

This data suggests that 5-MeO-DMT has a unique profile when compared to other classic psychedelics. There is a lack of complex visuals, with participants reporting the most intense effects being emotional, profound dissolution of the ego, and altered awareness of time and the individual self.

The study utilised machine learning to analyse interview transcripts, which highlighted these significant changes in individuals’ sensory perception, cognition, and relationship to the wider environment. It is exactly these powerful emotional/bodily experiences that researchers believe make them a promising adjunct to therapeutic practice.

Despite the incredible intensity of the experience, the relatively short duration potentially makes it a far more viable alternative to a substance like psilocybin, for example. Regardless of how therapeutically effective a substance is, if patients require monitoring for 8 hours at a time, scaling this will be incredibly difficult. However, the researchers noted that the study's small sample size (32 participants, receiving active doses ranging from 1 mg to 12) limits the ability to draw definitive conclusions. As ever, large-scale trials are necessary to gain a better understanding of the substance and its effects before approving its potentially widespread use in therapy.

Researchers are beginning to explore the potential of AI to simulate psychedelic experiences. In a recent article published in Nature Mental Health, researchers argue that “virtual psychedelics” could offer a safer alternative to classic psychedelics. Simulated experience would completely bypass the complex regulatory, methodological, and safety challenges associated with psychedelic-assisted therapy.

Clinicians may be able to use AI-driven, digital environments to induce altered states of consciousness. It may be possible that these experiences will promote ego dissolution and changes in perception, without the need for any kind of drug.

The proposed method would enable AI to generate highly personalised and dynamic environments tailored to a specific individual, with specific psychological needs. The digital approach would allow (in theory) for extreme precision over the intensity and duration of an experience. This may reduce the possibility of a “bad trip” or adverse reactions in general. It would also bypass the need for constant medical supervision of traditional psychedelic-assisted therapy.

The field is in its very, very early stages, and the authors of the study highlight this. It is very much up in the air as to whether a virtual experience can match the same long-term neuroplastic effects of substances like psilocybin, LSD, and DMT. If proven effective, though, they could be a safer, highly scalable alternative.

Following a series of positive clinical trials, the UK’s debate over integrating psychedelic-assisted therapy into the National Health Service has intensified. While patients regularly report life-changing breakthroughs, national experts remain divided. The main sticking points are the speed of the rollout and the current legal restrictions on the substances involved.

In the UK, all classic psychedelics are Schedule 1 drugs, meaning they are considered to have no medical value. This means obtaining a licence to study them, let alone administer them widely, is extremely difficult. Advocates like Professor David Nutt argue that:

There are so many people suffering unnecessarily…and some of them are dying, because of the unreasonable barriers to research and treatment that we face in this country. It is, in my view, a moral failing.

The safety profile of psychedelics is a central bone of contention in the British medical community as well. Data from the Challenging Psychedelic Experiences Project indicates that over 50% of regular users have experienced a "challenging trip," with nearly 9% reporting impairment lasting more than a day. However, scientists like Nutt counter:

These medicines are proven to be safe and effective…it is vital they are made available through the NHS to all who need them, not limited to the private sector, as happened with medical cannabis.

Despite the controversy and concerns, 2026 is set to be a pivotal year. Results from Compass Pathways phase 3 study are due later in the year. The UK government has also begun work on easing licensing requirements for university and NHS research. If these large-scale trials confirm psychedelics’ safety and effectiveness in a therapeutic context, then, advocates argue, there is no excuse not to make them available on the NHS.

For now, though, ketamine remains the only psychedelic-adjacent substance permitted for medical use in the UK.