In this episode, Dr Elle Wadsworth talks to Dr Michelle Priest, a research project specialist at RAND, US. The interview covers Michelle’s data insight looking at psilocybin microdosing in the US with insights from a nationally representative survey.

• What is microdosing? [01:09]
• The importance of looking at the prevalence of microdosing psilocybin in the US [02:52]
• The state and local policy landscape of psilocybin in the US [03:35]
• The nationally representative survey that Michelle and colleagues used [06:20]
• The key findings of the study [07:15]
• The reasons for microdosing psilocybin [08:26]
• The temporality of the microdosing questions [09:30]
• Why people didn’t know whether they microdosed [10:36]
• Who is microdosing psilocybin [12:02]
• Some surprising findings from the study [12:55]
• The implications of the findings for policy [14:00]
• The next steps in the RAND team for psychedelics [14:29]
• The take home messages of the study [15:32]

About Elle Wadsworth: Elle is an research fellow with the Society for the Study of Addiction. She is based at the University of Bath with the Addiction and Mental Health Group and her research interests include drug policy, cannabis legalisation, and public health.

About Michelle Priest: Michelle is a policy researcher at RAND, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization committed to the public interest. Her work focuses on the regulation of emerging markets, especially psychedelic substances. Michelle is a mixed methods researcher with specialized skills in human-centered design and survey methodology. She has B.A.s in economics and linguistics from the University of California, Los Angeles as well as an M.Phil. and Ph.D. in policy analysis from the RAND School of Public Policy.

Original article: Psilocybin microdosing in the United States: Insights from a nationally representative survey https://doi.org/10.1111/add.70368

The opinions expressed in this podcast reflect the views of the host and interviewees and do not necessarily represent the opinions or official positions of the SSA or Addiction journal.

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Music by Jack Shakespeare.

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