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UCSF's Canopy Project Wants to Study Psychedelics Where People Actually Use Them
UCSF researchers are recruiting recreational users of psilocybin, LSD, ketamine, MDMA and other psychedelics for a global study tracking real-world use, backed by $8.5 million in federal ARPA-H funding. The Canopy Project aims to learn who benefits from these drugs, under what conditions, and why.
UC San Francisco is recruiting casual users of psychedelic drugs for a large-scale study of how those substances affect people outside the controlled environment of a research lab, the university announced this week.
The initiative, called the Canopy Project, is seeking people who use ketamine, psilocybin (commonly known as magic mushrooms), LSD, ayahuasca, ibogaine or MDMA in their everyday lives â at home or at organized retreats â rather than in clinical settings. Participants will complete standardized assessments before and after planned psychedelic experiences and for up to six months afterward, researchers said.
"Psychedelics are widely used outside research labs, yet much of what we know about their effects comes from carefully controlled research settings," said Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris, a professor of neurology at UCSF and the study's lead researcher. "CANOPY gives us an opportunity to bring scientific rigor to these experiences at a scale we haven't had before â to understand not just whether psychedelics can be beneficial, but for whom, under what circumstances, and why."
Participants who can travel to UCSF will undergo brain imaging and EEG scans and provide blood and saliva samples before their planned experiences. They will also wear devices that collect physiological data outside the lab. Researchers described the commitment as flexible, offering a brief and simple version of the study alongside an optional, more thorough one.
Those interested can apply by emailing canopyproject@ucsf.edu or visiting the Carhart-Harris Lab's study page.
The Canopy Project is one of three psychedelics studies sharing $8.5 million in funding from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, or ARPA-H, an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services. The funding reflects the priorities of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has publicly championed research into psychedelic therapies.
A second ARPA-H-funded project, also led by Carhart-Harris along with Jennifer Mitchell, PhD, will examine how a person's mindset and surroundings shape psychedelic effects. A third, supported by a $3.1 million grant, will study psychedelics in older adults with low well-being and biomarkers associated with preclinical Alzheimer's disease.
The push comes as psychedelic substances draw growing interest from researchers and policymakers, even as they remain largely illegal outside limited clinical and decriminalized contexts. For the Bay Area â long a hub of both counterculture and biomedical innovation â the study offers a rare chance for ordinary users to contribute data to the science that may eventually shape regulation and treatment.
Researchers emphasized that the project is observational, not an invitation to use drugs, and that participants are tracked around their own planned experiences rather than dosed in a lab. The approach could fill a major gap: most existing evidence on psychedelics comes from small, tightly controlled trials that may not reflect how the drugs are actually used in the real world.