A four-person Johns Hopkins pilot study found that 25 mg of oral THC could produce altered-state profiles that qualitatively resembled those seen with 25 mg of psilocybin, particularly when consumed in a setting modeled on psychedelic research. The sample is far too small to establish cannabis as a psychedelic, but the findings add to earlier research suggesting that dose, context, and individual response can push THC experiences into unexpectedly psychedelic-like territory.
Cannabis and psychedelic mushrooms are not the same. They don’t work the same way in the brain, they don’t belong to the same pharmacological family and, generally speaking, they don’t feel the same either. But when the THC dose gets high enough, that line can start to feel a whole lot blurrier.
A new study from researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that 25 milligrams of oral THC can produce subjective experiences resembling those produced by 25 milligrams of psilocybin, the main psychoactive compound in psychedelic mushrooms, as reported by Marijuana Moment. In some cases, participants couldn’t even correctly identify which substance they had received.
Before we start declaring that weed has secretly been a psychedelic this whole time, though, there’s one very important piece of fine print: the study included just four people.
That’s it. Four.
The researchers themselves describe it as a pilot study and point out that the sample was so small that they couldn’t even run inferential statistical analyses. In other words, this is useful for spotting an interesting signal, not for making sweeping claims about how people in general respond to THC.
What makes that signal worth paying attention to is that it comes with a whole lot of scientific backstory.
Four People, THC, Psilocybin and a Room Built for Going Inward
The study, published August 27, 2026, in Psychopharmacology, included four healthy …
Read More
Author: Camila Berriex / High Times
