When anti-drug advocates talk about mind-altering substances they often suggest that one puff, pop or snort will leave you dead in a ditch wishing you had just stuck to beer.
Numbers, of course, are the enemy of prohibitionists and fear mongers, and a new set of statistics from this year’s Global Drug Survey will give you prime ammunition to refute those teetotalers. According to the survey only 0.2% of psilocybin hallucinogenic mushrooms users and 0.6% of cannabis users needed emergency medical treatment.
The annual survey collected information from 120,000 people in 50 countries, and covers a wide range of drug use topics, including frequency of use and detrimental effects.
After breaking down the piles of data, researchers behind the study found that the world’s two most popular all natural drugs were by far the safest – with magic mushrooms turning out to be less deadly than accidental poisonous fungi foraging.
“Magic mushrooms are one of the safest drugs in the world,” Adam Winstock, a consultant addiction psychiatrist and founder of the Global Drug Survey told the Guardian. “Death from toxicity is almost unheard of with poisoning – with more dangerous fungi being a much greater risk in terms of serious harms.”
Related: Colorful Joints to Jump-Start Your Day
Cannabis came in a close second in terms of safety, with methamphetamine and synthetic marijuana – or bath salts – taking up the top two “most dangerous” spots.
Still, only 4.8% of reported meth users and 3.2% of reported synthetic marijuana users required emergency medical treatment, suggesting that drugs in general are not as life threatening as our politicians claim. Could it be that enforced prohibition is more dangerous than drug use itself?
So if anyone ever tries to use a safety argument to try and dissuade you from eating a couple of magic mushrooms, please print out copies of the Global Drug Survey and shove it directly into their face.
