In brief
- Seven smokers with a history of failed quit attempts underwent three weekly intramuscular ketamine sessions alongside motivational therapy.
- All seven completed every session, and no adverse events occurred beyond expected, transient psychoactive effects.
- Cigarette consumption and smoking cravings dropped, but this was an open-label pilot with no control group and a tiny sample size.
A team from the Medical University of South Carolina and Kaiser Permanente evaluated an approach already being explored for other addictions in a small pilot study: combining psychotherapy with ketamine to help people quit smoking. The study was published on September 25 in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.
What was tested and who took part
The authors begin with a well-known reality: existing smoking cessation treatments, whether pharmacological or behavioral, offer modest efficacy. Their hypothesis is that ketamine, a glutamate receptor antagonist that promotes neural plasticity, could foster cognitive and psychological flexibility during motivational enhancement therapy, thereby bolstering a person’s ability to quit smoking.
The study was open-label—meaning all participants knew what they were receiving—and lacked a comparison group. Seven smokers aged 29 to 64 enrolled, all with previous unsuccessful quit attempts. Each received three weekly sessions of intramuscular ketamine at 0.71 mg/kg, combined with motivational enhancement therapy. The primary objective was not to determine whether participants successfully quit smoking, but rather to evaluate protocol feasibility, measured by study completion rates.
What they found
All seven participants completed the sessions. According to the study abstract, the sessions were well tolerated, with no adverse events reported beyond the transient psychoactive effects typically produced by ketamine. Among secondary outcomes, cigarette consumption and nicotine craving decreased. In contrast, withdrawal symptoms, dependence severity, and motivation to quit remained stable.
That last nuance matters: the reduction in consumption and craving did not correlate with a measurable change in self-reported motivation or dependence. Moreover, with only seven participants, any granular interpretation risks overinterpreting the data. The source consulted here is the abstract indexed on PubMed; individual data points appearing solely in the full text were not analyzed.
What this means
These results provide a signal of feasibility, not proof of efficacy. Without a control group, it is impossible to disentangle the effect of ketamine from that of motivational therapy, clinical attention, or participant expectancy. The authors themselves conclude that the findings justify larger follow-up trials.
This fits into a broader line of research exploring ketamine as an adjunct to behavioral change rather than solely as an antidepressant. You can review what we know about the drug in our guide to ketamine and dissociatives, and explore the research framework in psychedelic science and therapy. For anyone considering quitting smoking, the takeaway for now remains modest: a feasible, well-tolerated protocol exists in a small sample, but further trials are needed to determine whether it outperforms currently available treatments.
Source
- Jones J, Redding J, Amador E. Ketamine-enhanced psychotherapy for smoking cessation: A pilot study of feasibility, safety, and clinical outcomes. Journal of Psychopharmacology, September 25, 2026.
Educational content written from a harm reduction perspective and with respect for individual freedom. It is not a substitute for advice from a healthcare professional and is not intended to encourage or condemn any drug use.
