Ketamine is an interesting drug. It blocks the neurotransmitter, N-methyl-D-aspartate, which is associated with pain. It was developed as a battlefield anesthetic used in clinical settings during the Vietnam War. It’s used for anesthesia today in clinical settings and, in certain forms, for the treatment of depression.

Ketamine has been used as a recreational drug for decades.  According to the National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA):

Ketamine can distort the way a person perceives sights or sounds. A person using it may feel happy, or like they are dreaming or floating outside of their body. At higher doses, a person may feel confused and be unable to move or speak, which is called being in a k-hole.

The drug, which has not been FDA-approved for treating depression, has become famous for being implicated in the death of several celebrities, including Friends star, Matthew Perry, on October 28, 2023. The drug results in a “trancelike cataleptic state,” according to a metabolic study of ketamine for the journal Forensic Sciences Research. It’s used to keep patients from feeling pain during surgery, so it is understandable that ketamine is used recreationally to block the pain of trauma. The problem is that it can be addictive and have devastating side effects.

Journalists Rachel Hall and Clea Skopeliti recently published a report in The Guardian on the dramatic increase in ketamine addiction in the United Kingdom. The number of people seeking ketamine treatment at the U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS) doubled between 2019 and 2014. Among young people receiving treatment for substance use disorders, those who reported problems with ketamine shot up from only 1% in 2015 to 6% in 2023.

The Guardian profiles one woman in treatment who started using ketamine recreationally with friends and continued using it to block unwanted thoughts. Within a year she became severely ill from injecting ketamine, resulting in liver disease and nerve damage. She had no idea the drug could cause such problems. The drug is known to cause bladder problems. One urologist interviewed by The Guardian said he had seen “an explosion in ketamine bladder cases since 2019.”

The patient is being treated at a unique facility in the U.K, the Club Drug Clinic (CDC), which specializes in substance use disorders associated with “club drugs” such as ecstacy, ketamine, MDMA, and GHB. The multiple award-winning center provides psychiatric and medicinal interventions for people who are often reluctant to seek treatment, including young people, sex workers, LGBTQ+, and members of the entertainment industry.

The clinic was founded by psychiatrist, Dr. Owen Bowden-Jones, who sees ketamine addiction as a result of people attempting to treat their own mental health disorders. Dr. Bowden-Jones told The Guardian:

“My sense is the vast majority are using it to self-medicate for emotional distress. That would suggest to me they found a pharmacological short cut to managing their mental health,” he said, adding that this may reflect difficulties in accessing mental health services.

The use of club drugs such as ketamine beyond recreational use to self-medicate for anxiety and depression is largely the result of inaccessible mental health services, according to Dr. Bowden-Jones, and the stigma of patients who fall victim to drugs of abuse.

The irony in all this is that ketamine is being aggressively studied for its potential to treat alcohol use disorder and other substance use disorders. The drug relieves symptoms of withdrawal and may help people get unhooked from other drugs. Just hope they don’t get hooked on ketamine instead.

Written by Steve O’Keefe. First published September 30, 2024.

Sources:

“Young people addicted to ketamine a national problem, says UK expert,” The Guardian, September 16, 2024.

“What to Know About Ketamine,” Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health, January 2024.

“Ketamine Deaths Like Matthew Perry’s Are Rare — But Not Unheard-Of. Here’s What To Know,” Forbes, December 16, 2023.

“Metabolism and metabolomics of ketamine: a toxicological approach,” Forensic Sciences Research, February 2017.

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