Capitalism <3 Ketamine
Rapid expansion, sudden closures, + ...bunk drugs?
The following is an excerpt from p. 221-224 of Chapter 4, “Mystical Medicine, Wicked Weapon: A Both/And Approach to Ketamine” from my book, Drugism (2022):
More than twenty years ago, in the closing passage of his book Ketamine: Dreams and Realities, clinical researcher Karl Jansen predicted that the drug would continue to grow more popular. His prediction proved correct. We have already seen how measures taken against the drug in China and India pushed ketamine production into neighboring nations, resulting in proliferation of the drug throughout Southeast Asia. That is not the only area where ketamine has grown in popularity.
In October 2021, a study was published in Australia which found that ketamine use has increased there too in recent years.[i] The following month, a similar study was published in the US which likewise found that ketamine use has increased in the US recently.[ii] Interestingly, the latter study found that the use and availability of illicit ketamine in the US spiked in 2019, the same year that Johnson & Johnson’s Spravato received FDA approval. It should be no surprise that with this growth in popularity, ketamine has garnered its fair share of shout-outs by musicians, celebrities, and the like.
Ketamine in pop culture
Among musicians, the drug (like many others) seems to transcend boundaries, and has been referenced by a variety of artists whose styles range from punk rock to hip hop to electronic dance music. Back before it was a controlled substance in the US, NOFX released “Kids of the K-Hole.” A few years later, after ketamine was placed on Schedule III, CocoRosie released “K-Hole.” In more recent years, the drug has also been referenced by Tech9 (who managed to turn the word ketamine into an adjective in “So Dope”), Death Grips (who in “The Fear,” instructed the listener to “Gather your things and bolt till you reach/The crystal fields of ketamine”), and Freddie Gibbs (who raps about mixing ketamine with cocaine in “Big Boss Rabbit”).
Several tracks by numerous artists (including the indie rock band Shoe, the rapper Poppa, and the electronic musician 4teas) are simply titled “Ketamine.” At least one artist has even crafted a stage name for themselves based on the drug: Jojo Ketamine, from Uganda. Yet another artist, from Sweden, working under the name Dolphins in Heaven (possibly a John Lilly reference) released an album dedicated to Marcia Moore titled “Marcia Moore, In Memoriam.” The album’s tracks bear names like “Bright World,” and “For Marcia.”
A final, and particularly popular artist whose legacy is perhaps erroneously interwoven with ketamine is Amy Winehouse. After her death in 2011, reports emerged that the singer had bought ketamine, along with multiple other drugs, in the hours beforehand.[iii] Some speculated whether ketamine may have played a role in her death. Her family denied the possibility, however, and an autopsy revealed that there were no controlled substances in Winehouse’s bloodstream at the time of her death—instead, a fatal amount of alcohol.
Plenty of other pop culture figures besides Amy Winehouse have been associated with ketamine in one way or another. The drug has attracted a variety of celebrities, from NBA All-Star Lamar Odom, to Sharon Osborne, the former TV host and wife of Ozzy Osbourne, to Katie Hopkins, the reactionary conservative commentator from Britain.[iv] Ketamine also found itself in the headlines when it was used to sedate a children’s soccer team in Thailand during their rescue after they accidentally got trapped in a cave in 2018.[1][v]
Ketamine in the clinic
By far, most of the attention ketamine receives from corporate media today revolve around its use as an antidepressant. Although most of this coverage has focused on Johnson & Johnson’s esketamine, they are not the only company to embrace ketamine in recent years.
We learned in Section VII that after China’s fourth and final attempt to restrict ketamine globally, the US government took a more or less pro-ketamine stance. China’s last UN ketamine campaign occurred in 2015. The following year, the FDA granted breakthrough therapy status to esketamine, then in development by a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary, Jansen Pharmaceuticals.
Then, in 2017, Actify Neurotherapies announced plans to develop a ketamine patch. In a press conference, the company’s founder, Steve Levine, explained that the patch would deliver ketamine via iontophoresis, a technique which Levine described as “needleless IV.”[vi] Levine brazenly pitched the patch as an alternative to opioids.
Not only that, Actify also operated ten different ketamine clinics, where ketamine was offered—at a cost—for various off-label uses.[vii]It was not long before a number of other companies took a cue from Johnson & Johnson and Actify and began to develop new forms of ketamine and open ketamine clinics across the US.
Bexson Biomedical, a California-based company we discussed in Chapter 3, also announced plans for a ketamine patch. And another company we discussed in the last chapter, the UK-based Small Pharma, is developing a metabolite of ketamine known as 6-hydroxynorketamine for use as an antidepressant.[viii]
Another firm named PharmaTher has, as of this writing, a total of five ketamine-based drugs in development. Their website declares that the company’s purpose is to “UNLOCK potential of KETAMINE [sic]” and that they seek to “COMMERCIALIZE novel KETAMINE solutions.”[ix] They have also developed a microneedle patch which they plan to combine with several drugs including DMT, MDMA, and LSD. So far, the FDA has treated PharmaTher favorably and it seems likely that we will see one or more of their products hit the market soon.
At least one company has taken a cue from Actify and started to both develop new ketamine-based drugs and operate clinics simultaneously. On January 20, 2021, the day that Joe Biden was sworn in as president, a company called Core One Labs Incorporated announced its plan to acquire a ketamine clinic in Texas.[x] By March, the acquisition was completed. Just four months later, Core One Labs Inc. then announced that a subsidiary of theirs called Akome Biotech Ltd patented a ketamine-based drug intended to treat depression.[xi]
Also in 2021, another company, Delic Holdings Corporation, acquired two separate chains of ketamine clinics. By the end of the year they owned twelve clinics in nine states, and they have plans to open fifteen more clinics throughout the US in the near future. In a press release, the corporation brags that it is now “the largest psychedelic organization operating in the United States.” [xii] [Note: every single one of their locations closed abruptly in March 2023.]
While Core One Labs Inc. and Delic Holdings Corp. gobbled up ketamine clinics, a California state senator named Scott Weiner introduced a bill that, if passed, will decriminalize a slew of substances including DMT, LSD, psilocybin, and more in California. Initially, ketamine was included in the bill, too. But over the summer of 2021, it was dropped from the bill after several people voiced their concern about the ways ketamine can be used to facilitate sexual abuse.[xiii]
Ketamine in the mail
It has been a busy time for other areas of government as well, as far as ketamine is concerned. A few months into the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA relaxed its rules around the distribution of prescription drugs.[xiv] It was not long before savvy ketamine entrepreneurs took this as an opportunity to market mail-order, at-home ketamine therapy.[xv]
The service is offered by companies like Mindbloom, which has been featured in The New York Times, Newsweek, and Women’s Health magazine. And if one were to read about the company in any of these publications, one might get the idea that Mindbloom provides an effective and well-liked service. However, if one were to read not corporate media, but the reviews written by actual customers of the company, a rather different picture emerges. A positive review is hard to find. Instead, former customers describe the company as “despicable,” warn “this company steals money from people,” and offer tips on how to get a refund. One customer wrote that they “felt absolutely no effect” from Mindbloom’s mail-order ketamine.[xvi]
I realized during the PLANDEMIC the onslaught of advertising with therapeutic effects... but this micro patch thingy is gonna be a nightmare, imo, when the applications get into the black market, variety if uses etc... great read!!