jasveen sangha
After a week in which global headlines ping-ponged between genocidal drones, collapsing democracies, and whatever new cryptocurrency Jesus was minting this month, the name Jasveen Sangha arrived on the world’s front pages like a polite cough at the end of a bar fight.
Most readers outside California first encountered her in the grainy federal mugshot: the self-styled “Ketamine Queen” of North Hollywood, accused of running a narcotics bazaar so efficient that even Amazon’s logistics monks have begun taking notes. One DEA affidavit claims Sangha’s little black book contained the cell numbers of Grammy winners, Gulf-state princelings, and at least one tech titan who insists in interviews that he’s “just micro-dosing to optimize empathy.” In short: she was the concierge of chemical transcendence for people who already owned everything except the feeling of being alive.
International significance? Start with the supply chain. The ketamine allegedly flowed from clandestine labs in Hyderabad—because nothing says “Make in India” like dissociative anesthetics—through Dubai’s duty-free ether, and finally into the walk-in humidors of Bel-Air. Interpol, still dizzy from chasing fentanyl ghost ships across the Pacific, now gets to add “Indian pharmaceutical diversion” to its bingo card. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization quietly updates its briefing slides: addiction is no longer a disease of the poor; it’s a perk, like complimentary airport Wi-Fi.
The diplomatic ripple is equally droll. Washington wants New Delhi to tighten export licenses; New Delhi reminds Washington that most of the precursor chemicals are Made in USA™. Both sides agree to form a joint task force, which is bureaucratese for “photocopied press release and a catered lunch.” Across the Atlantic, European regulators sigh: they banned ketamine for recreational use decades ago, only to watch TikTok influencers treat it as an aspirational lifestyle. Somewhere in the Hague, a drug-policy lawyer updates his LinkedIn: “Specialist in doomed treaties.”
But the most exquisite irony sits in the consumer base. Sangha’s clientele isn’t shooting up in alleyways; they’re micro-dosing between board meetings and Pilates. Their panic at being exposed is less about jail time—lawyers are already warming up the “affluenza” defense—and more about optics. Nothing terrifies a billionaire quite like the possibility of being seated next to a journalist on a long-haul flight who might ask, “So, how’s the k-hole these days?”
And so the global elite does what it always does: weaponizes philanthropy. Within 48 hours of the indictment, a discreet foundation announced a $50 million initiative to “destigmatize therapeutic psychedelics.” Translation: we’re laundering our embarrassment into a tax-deductible halo. Expect glossy panels at Davos next year titled “Ketamine for Post-Modern Malaise,” moderated by a prince who’s never queued for anything except perhaps the guillotine.
For the rest of the planet, the tale carries a familiar moral. While 90 percent of humanity sweats to afford ibuprofen, the 0.1 percent turns existential dread into a subscription service. Sangha merely optimized the interface. If Marx were alive, he’d update his line about religion: dissociative anesthetics are the opiate of the opulent.
Yet there is something almost quaint about the whole affair—an echo of 1920s Shanghai opium soirées or Studio 54 powder rooms. Technology changes, but the human desire to feel nothing while feeling everything stays exquisitely on brand. The Ketamine Queen may do time, or she may do a TED Talk. Either way, the market abhors a vacuum almost as much as a bored celebrity.
And so the circus folds its tent and moves on. Somewhere in Eastern Europe, a drone reloads. Somewhere in the Pacific, a reef dies. And somewhere in North Hollywood, a vacant walk-in closet waits for the next entrepreneur who can translate ennui into inventory. The world keeps spinning—though if you’ve got the right hookup, it can be persuaded to wobble just enough to make the ride interesting.
