On Oct. 28, 2023, Matthew Perry was found lifeless in his Pacific Palisades mansion hot tub from a ketamine overdose. In the investigation that followed, Jasveen Sangha, infamously referred to as the “Ketamine Queen,” was placed under arrest and faces 15 years in prison. Even with the queen in custody, her kingdom is booming. 

Today, Generation Z’s ketamine usage is surging.

According to a 2018 survey conducted by Cigna, Gen Z is reported as the current loneliest, most depressed generation, as well as the least financially literate, scoring an historical low of 38% on the Personal Finance Index. While trying to find themselves inside a world of warfare and job market insecurity, instead of acknowledging the root causes of their mental crisis, they’re being marketed to by an unregulated industry of inhalable chemical crystals originally used in the Vietnam War for battlefield surgery. 

Gen Z’s desperation is that industry’s greatest profit. Even at a prestigious university, I’ve witnessed students ride the ketamine wave on Greek Row or at offsite house parties. Their reactions to the substance range from tripping over themselves to totally vegging out, unresponsive to their surroundings. 

Ketamine places you outside of your body, as if you’re watching yourself from above, and whatever is in front of you is simultaneously pulling and pushing you. As you gradually become dizzier, warmth permeates your body. But once the pulsating images return to their defined textures, you’re left partially sedated and mindless of the next step. 

Raised during a time when the digital world took over, Gen Z was promised connection but left comparing themselves to the grand and fit lifestyles influencers seemingly live. They have been conditioned to look to celebrities and influencers for lifestyle guidance — figures who fail to disclose the near-death experiences, common psychosis or permanent bladder damage ketamine can cause when abused. 

In a February 2025 BBC article reporting on victims of ketamine abuse, Abigail Wilson, then the lead clinical pharmacist for the national drug and alcohol charity WithYou, revealed: “We have seen young people under the age of 25 who’ve completely lost control of their bladders, who have had to have surgery, including bladder removal.” Those who survive the worst outcomes leave with catheters, monitored for kidney failure and facing permanent damage.

However, ketamine is just a final destination. The same generation has turned to unregulated research peptides like TB-500, all in pursuit of superficially controlling the aging of their body for peace of mind. 

Yet, we are designed to decay.

Gen Z’s obsession was shaped by those at the pinnacle of society. There are notable figures with mass influence who contribute to shaping conventional desires — like tech mogul Bryan Johnson using his son’s plasma for antiaging effects or Kris Jenner’s new face lift, making her look 35 at the age of 70. 

Now, celebrities like Kristen Bell, Ryan Reynolds and Michael Phelps have opened up about their holistic journeys toward mental wellbeing, with ketamine therapy at the forefronts of their pursuit. Ketamine therapy is a pricey process that uses low doses of ketamine to treat depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic pain by blocking pain receptors in the brain and forming new neural connections — known as synaptogenesis. 

However, these celebrities attend regulated ketamine therapy clinics, which most commonly use intravenous infusion – a process where ketamine swiftly enters the bloodstream, permitting a precise control over the administered dose. 

Throughout human history, we’ve found ourselves obsessed with attaining immortality. China’s first emperor Qin Shi Huang spent his reign chasing a magical elixir of immortality. The ancient Egyptians devoted an estimated 40% of their gross domestic product to preserving the afterlife through mummification. Those societies sought out methods to attain immortality to maintain their power — but, these modern elixirs offer not power but an escape. 

That escape can lead you further away from the problems expanding the deep void within us. It causes being comfortable with avoidance and, if habitualized, your mind will gravitate toward that new established norm of allowing an external presence to guide the next steps toward solving your psychological warfare.

For Gen Z, that escape stems from the burdensome weight of being present amid a world ridden with doom they’ve had no choice but to inherit. According to Deloitte’s 2025 global survey of Gen Zers and Millennials, around half of Gen Zers live paycheck to paycheck who likely scroll past weighty conflicts on their screens before their first meal of the day. Within a troubling world hindering our livelihood, a drug capable of chemically breaching our minds transforms from a sign of abjection and starts feeling like a lifeline. 

Without consumers wrestling with the origins of their deep loneliness, they will continue to seek quick and numbing solutions. But that mindset’s perils compound when a generation becomes reliant on a transactional substance that offers a warm blanket at the expense of learning to harness their own vulnerability.  

You are not a work of art who will peel and warp when the temperature rises or a rusted machine in need of a few sprays of WD-40 — you are part of a generation who was never taught how to suffer when you needed it most.