Crime prevention is a talking point that concerns even the quietest of our communities.

While the burden of preventing criminal offenses often lies within the hands of the men and women in law enforcement who solve crime, one Alabama professor says some illicit drugs might have an effective impact on lowering criminal activity in humans.

Dr. Peter S. Hendricks, an associate professor at University of Alabama at Birmingham's Health and Behavior department in the School of Public Health, has led a new study that proposes that psychedelic drugs like mushrooms, LSD and mescaline can help reduce crime.

Sounds pretty trippy, huh?

Hendricks used data pulled from 480,000 United States adult respondents within from the last 13 available years of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (2002 through 2014) in order to complete his research.

"Lifetime classic psychedelic use was associated with a reduced odds of past year larceny/theft, past year assault, past year arrest for a property crime, and past year arrest for a violent crime," the study's abstract reads.

Hendricks and his team of researchers identify other drugs in the study, such as cocaine or amphetamine, as yielding an increased trend of criminal activity from respondents in their sample populations.

The study, titled "The relationships of classic psychedelic use with criminal behavior in the United States adult population" was published in Sage Publishing's Journal of Psychopharmacology. Along with Hendricks, the study is authored in collaboration with UAB colleagues Michael Scott Crawford, Karen L. Cropsey, Heith Copes, Gregory Pavela and N. Niles Sweat. In addition to the Birmingham-based professors, Zach Walsh of the University of British Colombia's Department of Psychology contributed to the study.

"The development of innovative and effective interventions to prevent criminal behaviour is an obvious priority," Hendricks said in an interview with the University of British Colombia. "Our findings suggest the protective effects of classic psychedelic use are attributable to genuine reductions in antisocial behaviour rather than reflecting improved evasion of arrest."

"Simply put, the positive effects associated with classic psychedelic use appear to be reliable. Given the costs of criminal behaviour, the potential represented by this treatment paradigm is significant."