The Global Psychedelic Survey: What 70+ Countries Tell Us About Use Patterns

Between 2023 and 2025, something shifted in psychedelic research. A survey that once captured only English-speaking experiences expanded into a multilingual study spanning more than 70 countries and 15 languages. The limitation wasn't just linguistic—it was epistemological. How could researchers claim to understand global patterns while excluding the majority of the world's psychedelic users?

The Global Psychedelic Survey emerged from this recognition. Led by the Michigan Psychedelic Center at the University of Michigan, it represents a different approach to studying these substances: not in sterile labs, but in the messy reality of how people actually use them.

From English-Only to Global Collaboration

The 2023 version received over 6,300 responses from 85 countries. Impressive numbers, yet the survey could only speak to those fluent in English. What about Spanish-speaking users in South America? French-speaking communities in Africa? Indigenous populations with their own linguistic and ceremonial traditions?

More than 70 academics and dedicated individuals worldwide joined forces to fix this problem. Organizations like MAPS, ICEERS, OPEN Foundation, and the Global Psychedelic Society distributed the 2025 version across their networks. The result wasn't merely translation—it was transformation.

The updated psychedelic survey now includes:

• Questions designed by Indigenous academic collaborators specifically for Indigenous respondents

• Comprehensive examination of acute and long-term harms

• Sections on pregnancy and psychedelic use

• Queries about entity contact experiences

• Longitudinal components to track changes over time

The budget? Under $60,000 USD. With proper coordination, large-scale observational studies don't require millions or years of bureaucratic navigation.

What Real-World Data Reveals

Clinical trials provide control and clean data. They also strip away context. In labs, participants take measured doses in comfortable rooms with trained facilitators present. That's not how most people encounter psychedelics.

Capturing Naturalistic Patterns

People use these substances at festivals, in apartments, in nature—with friends or alone, with intention or impulsively. They combine substances, vary doses, and operate in different mental states. Some prepare extensively; others barely think ahead. According to research published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, naturalistic psychedelic use often differs significantly from controlled clinical settings, making community-based surveys essential for understanding real-world patterns.

The Global Psychedelic Survey captures these realities. How do people decide dosages? Where do they source substances, and how do they verify quality? What integration practices emerge without therapist guidance? When experiences go wrong, how do users respond?

Harm Reduction Through Community Knowledge

Tech executives restrict their children's screen time while publicly claiming digital technology helps young people. They know something from direct observation that contradicts their messaging. The global psychedelic community holds similar knowledge about reducing harms and maximizing outcomes, but that information remains scattered without systematic documentation.

GPS 2025 asks detailed questions about both acute and long-term problems—not theoretical harms that concern prohibitionists, but actual difficulties users encounter. By documenting patterns across countries and cultures, researchers can identify which harms appear universal and which are context-specific. Does legal status affect negative experiences? Do cultural attitudes toward altered states influence integration?

Longitudinal Tracking of Policy Impacts

The survey will repeat biennially, allowing researchers to observe how use patterns shift as laws change and medical applications expand. Oregon decriminalized psilocybin. Australia created pathways for medical use. Canada granted exemptions.

Someone taking mushrooms in Amsterdam operates in a vastly different environment than someone in Texas. But what about five years from now? As the legal landscape shifts rapidly, the psychedelic survey provides a way to measure real-world impacts.

Regional Variations and Cultural Frameworks

Translation didn't just convert words—it opened windows into fundamentally different frameworks for understanding altered states.

Language and Experience

Some languages have rich vocabularies for describing mystical experiences; others lack precise terms. Some cultures maintain centuries-old ceremonial traditions; others approach these substances as novel pharmaceuticals. Early GPS 2023 data showed that microdosing patterns, substance preferences, and motivations varied significantly across regions—but only among English speakers.

What patterns emerge when researchers capture experiences from Brazilian ayahuasca users, Japanese explorers in restrictive legal environments, or Spanish practitioners building on different cultural reference points? The 2025 Global Psychedelic Survey was designed to answer precisely these questions.

Indigenous Knowledge Systems

The section designed by and for Indigenous respondents represents one of the most significant additions. For many Indigenous communities, psychoactive plants represent ancestral medicine, spiritual practice, and cultural continuity—not "psychedelics" in the Western sense.

How do you ask about "therapeutic outcomes" when the respondent sees no distinction between healing the body and healing community relationships? How do you inquire about "set and setting" when someone's entire cosmology includes these experiences as natural and necessary? These aren't just methodological challenges—they're questions about whose knowledge counts and whether Western science can accommodate radically different ways of knowing.

Specific Use Patterns and Substance Interactions

Among patterns documented in previous versions, microdosing emerged as particularly widespread but highly variable. Some follow strict protocols—precise doses every three days, carefully tracked. Others dose intuitively, guided by feeling rather than calendars.

The Microdosing Phenomenon

A 2019 study in PLOS ONE found that microdosers reported improvements in mood, focus, and creativity, though controlled studies remain limited. Reported benefits range from enhanced productivity to better emotional regulation. But microdosing occurs in vastly different contexts: a Silicon Valley programmer using LSD for focus engages differently than someone using psilocybin to manage treatment-resistant depression.

GPS 2025 captures these nuances across countries and cultures:

• Do motivations for microdosing differ between regions?

• What about reported outcomes and side effects?

• Are certain dosing patterns more effective or problematic?

Polysubstance Use and Unexpected Combinations

Real-world use rarely happens in isolation. People drink alcohol, use cannabis, take prescription medications, and consume caffeine. They might combine substances deliberately—candyflipping, hippie flipping—or accidentally. The psychedelic survey documents which combinations appear most commonly and which lead to negative experiences.

Previous data showed that psychedelics sometimes impact the use of other substances. Research published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology found that many respondents reported decreased alcohol or opioid consumption after psychedelic experiences. But does this pattern hold across different cultures? Are there regions where psychedelics don't affect other substance use patterns?

What the Data Means

Beyond academic outputs, the Global Psychedelic Survey creates space where user knowledge gets taken seriously. In an era when several countries are reconsidering prohibition and medical applications are expanding, community-based data becomes invaluable. Tech companies collect massive user data to maximize profits. This survey collects user data to understand patterns, reduce harms, and ensure that as access expands—through medical channels, decriminalization, or cultural normalization—people have better information about approaching these powerful substances safely.

The collaboration behind GPS 2025 suggests that researchers, users, organizations, and Indigenous knowledge-holders can work together across borders and languages. That's uncommon in drug policy, usually dominated by prohibition and enforcement. The data collected might help shape something better: policies informed by reality rather than fear, practices grounded in actual experiences rather than speculation, approaches that respect both the power and the risks of these substances.