It's Been A Minute With Sam Sanders

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 illeg