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Former Cornell student Jane Doe, who filed a civil lawsuit in September 2026 alleging that seven fraternity members raped her at a party, said the young men who assaulted her pressured her into taking the drug ketamine.

As an emergency room physician, medical toxicologist and the head of student health services at the University of Virginia, I have had a front-row seat to the growing danger that psychoactive substances such as ketamine present to the health and safety of university students.

Ketamine and its emerging spinoff versions are part of a wave of new and evolving designer drugs entering the United States and other countries. How widely these substances are used remains unknown, since most hospitals are unable to detect them on standard urine drug screens. But ketamine and other drugs are being increasingly reported as agents used in sexual assault—either when people take these drugs voluntarily, are pressured to take them or are given them covertly.

The increasing prevalence of ketamine and other drugs—and their use in sexual assault—is playing out on college campuses across the U.S. and putting students at risk.

Ketamine is a synthetic chemical that was first synthesized in 1962. S. Food and Drug Administration approved it as a general anesthetic for people and animals in 1970, and doctors and veterinarians used it for decades to induce anesthesia during surgeries and to relieve pain.

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