A recent study analyzing data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) found that past-year recreational ketamine use among adults has increased dramatically since 2015, including significant shifts in associations with depression and sociodemographic characteristics such as race, age and education status. Ketamine use has shown promise in clinical trials therapy for several mental illnesses, including treatment-resistant depression, and the new research suggests that ongoing monitoring of recreational use trends is crucial to balancing these clinical benefits against the risk of unmonitored recreational use.
Key findings include:
The researchers recommend expanding prevention outreach to settings like colleges, where younger adults may be at heightened risk, as well as providing education on the harms of polydrug use, particularly in combination with opioids. As medical ketamine becomes more widely available, they also emphasize the need for continued surveillance of recreational ketamine use patterns and further research to understand the factors that contribute to ketamine use.
The study, published online in the Journal of Affective Disorders , was led by Kevin Yang, M.D., a third-year resident physician in the Department of Psychiatry at UC San Diego School of Medicine. The research was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
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Journal of Affective Disorders