Nicotine is very strong and addictive, but new research is showing that psychedelic substances can change the way people see the world, helping them quit cigarettes.
Tobacco is one of the hardest substances to quit. The nicotine it contains is as addictive as cocaine and heroin – perhaps even more so. In surveys, about 70% of adult smokers say they want to quit. Yet, of those who try, fewer than one in ten succeed each year.
However, there is growing evidence that some psychedelic drugs may offer some people a way out of smoking. In a 2017 survey, for example, 781 people said that using LSD, “magic mushrooms,” or another psychedelic had helped them cut down or quit smoking.
Why? The solution seems to be philosophical in nature. Almost all those who managed to quit nicotine reported a common experience: they suddenly felt that their priorities or values in life had changed – specifically, that smoking no longer served them.
"The magnitude of the experience diminished this previously seemingly insurmountable psychological challenge to quitting smoking," says Matthew Johnson, the study's lead author and professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University in the US.
And it’s not just anecdotal evidence. These findings have been confirmed in lab settings. In March 2026, Johnson and his colleagues published the strongest evidence yet showing that talk therapy combined with a dose of psilocybin — the main psychoactive ingredient in “magic mushrooms” — is significantly more effective at helping people quit smoking than the therapy combined with nicotine patches.
Six months after treatment, the 42 people who had taken psilocybin were six times more likely to have quit smoking than the group who used nicotine patches.
Psychedelics remain illegal in most countries around the world, and their use in research or clinical trials is strictly controlled. However, there is growing evidence to suggest that they can be used to treat a range of mental health disorders and addictions.
"There hasn't been a new smoking cessation medication in the U.S. for 20 years, so the potential here is promising," says Megan Piper, a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who was not involved in the study.
However, it is not yet clear why "magic mushrooms" help people quit smoking, and scientists question whether these results can be replicated in a larger and more diverse population, as well as what psychological or physiological mechanisms are at play.
