FULL REPORT:
How Americans Think About Psychedelics

The XandY Poll | November 2023

 

by Matthew Goldberg, Abel Gustafson, & Carly Wolfer
August 2024

Here we provide public access to The XandY Poll’s topline findings regarding Americans’ opinions about psychedelics. The full report deck is available for download as a PDF by clicking the button above. Below, we summarize some key findings and the details of The XandY Poll.

Executive Summary

Our national survey highlights important patterns in public opinion, and also reveals strategic opportunities for advocacy groups and policymakers. Overall, we find:

  • A majority of U.S. adults have basic misconceptions, such as thinking psychedelics are addictive.

  • Negative perceptions slightly outnumber positive perceptions, but uncertainty is most common.

  • Younger adults are far more supportive of policies allowing research, therapies, and legal use.

  • Psychedelics are seen as less harmful than tobacco and alcohol, but more harmful than marijuana.

  • Support outnumbers opposition by 3 to 1 for allowing therapeutic uses of MDMA and psilocybin, and this net support is found among both Democrats and Republicans.

  • Even among non-users, support for allowing therapeutic uses far outweighs opposition.

  • The most trusted sources of info are medical professionals and people with personal experience.

 
 

Our findings also point to important strategic considerations, such as:

  • The most productive starting points for action are permitting scientific research and therapeutic uses.

  • It is optimal to focus communication efforts on the large undecided and neutral group, since only a small minority of U.S. adults are currently firmly opposed.

  • Advocacy campaigns should center on the voices of trusted medical professionals and on patient success stories.

  • The most welcoming, supportive audiences are among younger, educated, liberal population segments.

  • For oppositional groups, it is important to focus on defusing false beliefs and negative stereotypes—which are disproportionately common among older generations.

About The XandY Poll

SURVEY METHODOLOGY

The design, data collection, analysis, and reporting of this national survey were performed by XandY, an independent research and strategy firm. Exhaustive details of the scientific methodology of The XandY Poll can be found here. The following briefly summarizes key points of interest.

The survey responses were fielded from November 18 – November 21, 2023 using online recruitment methods to sample adult residents of the United States (N = 1,527). This survey used a nested quota sampling strategy to match U.S. Census proportions of age, income, race and ethnicity, gender, and political party affiliation. To further ensure the insights reported from these data closely resemble the U.S. population, the sample was weighted to match U.S. Census benchmarks. Percentage values are rounded to the nearest whole number.

MARGIN OF ERROR

Proportion statistics regarding the full national sample have an average margin of error of +/- 2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. The margin of error in subgroups is determined by the subgroup size.

Citation

This paper and the insights it reports may be cited as:

Goldberg, M. H., Gustafson, A., & Wolfer, C. (2024). How Americans Think About Psychedelics: November, 2023. XandY. New Haven, CT. Retrieved from https://www.xandyanalytics.com/poll/psychedelics/2023report