Ketamine & the Era of Dissociation

It's Been a Minute

NPR

News Commentary, Society & Culture, News, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 8.8K Ratings

🗓️ 3 October 2025

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Recreational ketamine use is on the rise. But why are some people using it to dissociate in the club?

Ketamine – a dissociative anesthetic – is illegal without a prescription and can potentially be harmful. Yet, it has had a massive rise in recreational use over the past decade. One study found that use increased by 81.8% from 2015 to 2019 and rose another 40% from 2021 to 2022. What is driving the illicit drug's sudden popularity? And is it's dissociative properties indicative of our times?

Brittany chats with P.E. Moskowitz, a journalist and author of Breaking Awake: A Reporter’s Search for a New Life, and a New World, Through Drugs, which explores our national mental health and drug use crises, and Benjamin Breen, associate professor of history at UC Santa Cruz, who specializes in the histories of science, medicine and drugs and is the author of the book, Tripping on Utopia. Together they investigate why ketamine is showing up in more people's social lives.

Warning: this episode contains discussion of illegal drugs and drugs use and may not be suitable for all listeners.

(0:00) Why Ketamine is the party drug on the moment
(5:12) What recreational drug users say about it's affects
(13:06) Why ketamine's dissociative effects match today's cultural anxieties
(17:24) Safety concerns for recreational ketamine use
(19:42) Responding to listeners comments

For more information on the science of ketamine, check out NPR's Short Wave podcast.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This message comes from 48 hours. The seemingly random murders of a beloved couple left the town of Davis, California, paralyzed in fear. Join correspondent Aaron Moriarty for 15 inside the Daniel Marsh murders, available wherever you get your podcasts.
0:17.2	A warning. This episode discusses drugs and drug use.
0:22.5	I think everyone right now is looking for ways to get closer to each other and to loosen up because this world is so isolating.
0:32.2	And especially with the internet, you know, all socialization taking place through the internet or dating apps or, you know, if you're queer, like grinder, things like that.
0:40.0	Something's always being mediated. Yeah, something's always being mediated. So I think in-person
0:44.2	interaction has statistically become rarer. But then I think when it does happen, people have this
0:49.0	desire to really let loose get close and let their guard down. And I think from my reporting, ketamine is
0:56.0	a perfect drug for that in a way because when I talk to a lot of people who take it to go to the
1:00.6	club, it's so that they can socialize without feeling anxious or without feeling insecure about
1:05.9	themselves. So I think it's popularity as almost a reaction to how kind of atomized and isolating our world has become.
1:15.4	Hello, hello.
1:16.9	I'm Brittany Luce, and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR,
1:20.6	a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.
1:32.0	Good. why it doesn't happen by accident. This week, we're talking about a club drug that's quickly rising in popularity,
1:36.9	the dissociative anesthetic called ketamine.
1:40.6	But why might people want to dissociate in the club?
1:44.6	Well, we're going to find out with P.E. Moskowitz, journalist and the author of Breaking
1:49.0	Awake, a reporter's search for a new life through drugs, which explores our national
1:53.9	mental health and drug use crises, and considers paths to collective healing.
1:58.7	Thanks for having me.
1:59.6	And Benjamin Breen, Associate Professor of History at UC Santa Cruz, who specializes
2:04.8	in the histories of science, medicine, and drugs, and is the author of the book, Tripping
	...

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