Baseline psychiatric history confounds observed links between hallucinogen use and later psychosis in population data, reducing evidence for a direct causal association

Baseline psychiatric history weakens the apparent association between hallucinogen use and later psychosis in population-level analyses. The central claim is that people with preexisting mental health vulnerabilities may be more likely both to use hallucinogens and to experience psychotic outcomes, which can make a simple correlation look causal when it is not. Psychosis risk therefore needs to be interpreted in light of prior psychiatric symptoms, diagnoses, and related confounders rather than attributed to hallucinogen exposure alone. This framing matters for clinicians, researchers, and public health discussions because it shifts attention from crude association estimates toward better-controlled models, patient screening, and more precise risk communication about psychedelic and hallucinogen use.