Reggie Watts, Ketamine, and Ideology

This article is based on a video I uploaded. There are minor differences, as the video was not scripted and this version has been automatically transcribed and lightly edited to work as an article.

Rolling Stone recently published an article titled “Reggie Watts Is a Prominent Ketamine Advocate. Was It His Ex’s Undoing?” The piece centers on the death by suicide of Watts’s former girlfriend and the claims of friends who believe his encouragement of ketamine use contributed to her addiction and, ultimately, her death. Watts’s team has called those claims “dangerously false.”

The article builds what is essentially a character case against Watts. It moves through his drug advocacy, his relationships, allegations about his behavior, and the testimony of people who believe his influence was destructive.

For the sake of argument, suppose every negative claim in the article is true. Suppose Watts is reckless, narcissistic, selfish, and irresponsible with drugs. That is not a sufficient basis for establishing his responsibility for another person’s death.

I should also establish that I strongly disagree with Watts about psychedelics. I have very little patience for the idea that people need psychedelics to find themselves, open themselves to the world, or achieve some form of enlightenment. Watts appears to have fully embraced that ideology and become an enthusiastic advocate.

Some of Watts’s comments strike me as plainly irresponsible. He has, for example, publicly disputed the role of ketamine in Matthew Perry’s death, despite the medical examiner ruling that Perry died from the acute effects of ketamine, drowning due to the effects of the drug.

I would not take drug advice from Reggie Watts. I would not personally want to be around someone who talks about drugs the way he does.

But that raises a more important question: what is Watts’s actual social role here? Does he own a ketamine company? Does he run a clinic? Does he prescribe the drug? Does he manufacture it?

No. The Rolling Stone article itself notes that he does not own or operate a commercial enterprise involving ketamine. So if he is just a guy, then he is just a guy! He’s not the person selling the system but a person who bought it.

And by “bought it,” I do not merely mean that he bought ketamine. He bought the ideology surrounding it: self-discovery, healing, openness, enlightenment, higher consciousness.

The next logical step is “Is Reggie Watts an addict?” I don’t think we (the public) can reasonably infer this from what we know. But what I can say is that ideologies like this often provide a framework for rationalizing behavior. And if the article proves anything about Watts, it’s that this ideology works.

None of this requires a simplistic “drugs are bad” argument. Dangerous substances can have medical uses. Ketamine has clinical applications. Opioids are addictive and can also be necessary painkillers. Other drugs that are dangerous in uncontrolled settings may have valid medical or therapeutic purposes.

The relevant question is not whether a drug is simply good or bad. It is why the drug is being used, under what conditions, and by whom.

There is a meaningful distinction between medical treatment and recreational use that has been given a therapeutic interpretation after the fact. A medical professional may prescribe or administer a dangerous drug because a condition is being treated, there is an established dose, known contraindications, monitoring, and a standard by which the treatment can be judged effective or ineffective.

That is categorically different from saying that a drug helps someone “connect with their authentic self better so they just use it, maaaaaaaan.”

This is where psychedelic ideology becomes significant. Getting high is seen as “finding yourself,” emotional openness as “learning to connect,” dissociation as “ego death,” and intense subjective experiences as proof of meaning.

That creates a form of recreational consumption with its justification built in. Instead of saying, “I enjoy doing this,” which is at least straightforward, the claim becomes, “I need this to access a more authentic, open, or enlightened version of myself.”

That distinction matters because such an ideology can provide a ready-made rationalization for someone whose use is becoming destructive. It does not erase people’s responsibility for their actions, and it does not mean that every person who uses psychedelics is addicted. But it can make harmful use easier to reinterpret as “healing.”

Then there is the question of who benefits.

Anyone manufacturing and selling ketamine benefits from people using it. “Wellness centers” promote its therapeutic use. Retreats and related industries use language of healing and transformation. Media outlets in an attention economy profit from the mystique, transgression, and spectacle of psychedelics.

The seller isn't just selling the high, but its meaning. More specifically, the commodity is improved when consumption itself can be understood as self-improvement.

Watts appears to have bought exactly that idea. And this is where the Rolling Stone article becomes especially frustrating for me.

The article focuses on whether Reggie Watts bears responsibility for a woman’s suicide. Perhaps his behavior contributed in some way, and perhaps it did not. Neither the average reader nor I have enough information to make that judgment, yet the article asks us to do exactly that.

It encourages one of two responses: either Watts is a reckless man whose influence helped destroy someone, or the accusation is outrageous because she was an adult responsible for her own decisions. I don’t care which one you pick!

Those positions appear opposed, but they share the same frame. In either case, the question becomes: what kind of person is Reggie Watts? And the question that disappears is: why does an ideology exist around ketamine that presents its use this way in the first place?

The structures recede into the background while the interpersonal villain takes center stage. The article avoids exposing the ideology and instead individualizes its consequences.

Yes, people are responsible for their own decisions. Anyone who has spent time around recovery programs knows that personal accountability is an important part of sobriety. But personal accountability and institutional responsibility are not opposites.

If anything is going to improve, even incrementally, we still have to ask who is institutionally responsible, who benefits, and what incentives reproduce the behavior.

And I’m not talking about “revolution,” here. Every “incrementalist” who might critique me for being obsessed with capital and systems needs to understand this applies to reform as well.

We are not going to get better health policy, better addiction policy, or much of anything else if institutional responsibility is continually reduced to a story about bad individuals.

Because ideology does not merely conceal the problem, it often defines the wrong problem. And that’s where people’s energy goes.