‘I legally signed up for endless ketamine therapy in minutes – the tranquilizer that killed Matthew Perry’: Inside America’s latest drug craze [Video]

12:23 EDT 23 Jun 2024, updated 12:23 EDT 23 Jun 2024

‘I’m tired, I’m ready to call it a day,’ says the psychiatric nurse about to dole out my first ever ketamine prescription.

It’s the start of our video consultation that I’m hoping will be a rigorous assessment of my suitability for a new and potentially risky treatment for anxiety and depression.

It doesn’t fill me with confidence.

But this is how tens of thousands of Americans are now getting their ketamine fix: a tick-box online questionnaire, a cursory virtual assessment and a mail-order delivery that lands on their doorstep within days.

It is all perfectly legal. But the ease with which customers can now access the sedative, which is sometimes abused as a street drug, has sparked warnings among the medical community that profit-hungry clinics are putting lives at risk.