Ketamine

Ketamine is a hallucinogen but also combines features associated with stimulants and depressants. Ketamine is generally used as a rapid-acting anesthetic drug mainly by veterinarians and occasionally in human surgery. It is also known as a “dissociative anesthetic” because it can make a person feel a sense of detachment, as if their mind is separated from their body.

Commercial ketamine comes in the form of a liquid while the street drug is usually sold as a powder. When it is abused, the powder is typically dissolved in a liquid, snorted, or smoked in a cigarette. Liquid ketamine is sometimes injected into a muscle. Injecting it in a vein can cause rapid loss of consciousness.

Ketamine is odourless and tasteless and easily dissolves in liquids, allowing it to be slipped into drinks without detection. Its sedative effects have been used to prevent victims from resisting sexual assault. For this reason, it has been called a "date rape" drug.

Also known as: big K, blind, breakfast cereal, cat tranquillizers, horsey P, K, keller, ket, ketalar, ketty, kit-kat, K-rod, lady K, special K, super K, vitamin K, squid, and wonk.

Effects and health risks

The effects of ketamine and other illegal drugs can be unpredictable and may vary from person to person or even from occasion to occasion. The way a person feels after taking ketamine depends on many factors including:

• the user’s age and weight
• the user’s mood, expectations, and environment
• any medical or psychiatric conditions the user may have
• the amount of ketamine taken (dose)
• how the drug is taken (snorted, ingested or injected)
• how often and for how long ketamine has been used
• the use of other drugs, including alcohol, non-prescription, prescription, and street drugs

The speed at which ketamine reaches the brain varies greatly. After snorting, the effects are usually felt within one to 10 minutes and can last for about one hour. When taken by mouth, the effects are felt less quickly and may last up to two hours.

Short-term effects

Ketamine can produce vivid dreams or hallucinations which may be intense and terrifying. It can also produce the sensation that the mind is separated from the body: this is called “dissociation.” When ketamine is used medically, dissociation is considered to be an unpleasant side effect.

Ketamine can produce a drunken, dizzy feeling. Some people also describe sensations of weightlessness, and "out-of-body" or "near-death" experiences. These experiences are often described as being in or going through the “k-hole.”

Short-term use of ketamine can produce many other effects:

• sleepiness
• confusion
• loss of coordination
• blurred vision
• inability to speak
• nausea and vomiting
• fever
• increased blood pressure and heart rate
• memory loss
• nose bleeds
• unpleasant taste
• decreased response to pain

Also, a person might experience:

• temporary paralysis (inability to move)
• incoherence or semi-consciousness
• respiratory depression (slowed breathing)
• severe rise in blood pressure

Ketamine can cause vomiting. Eating or drinking before taking ketamine can increase the risk of choking on vomit.

Taking ketamine with other central nervous system depressants like alcohol or sedative-hypnotics is very dangerous and may result in death caused by accidents or by cardiac or respiratory arrest.

Long-term health risks

• Urinary and bladder problems. Recent studies and case reports have linked ketamine abuse to urinary tract and bladder problems, including difficult or painful urination, frequent/urgent urination, incontinence, and severe bladder inflammation. In some cases, the damage may be irreversible. It is unclear how dose and duration of use affect the severity of these symptoms.
• Infectious diseases. A person who shares drug supplies (like needles and straws) can spread infectious diseases like HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C.
• Birth defects. The extent to which ketamine may harm a developing fetus is unknown.

Overdose

When taken in higher amounts, ketamine may depress the central nervous system. This can lead to slowed breathing, seizures, and coma, and may result in death.

Addiction and withdrawal

Relatively little information exists on the potential of ketamine to cause either psychological dependence or physical dependence. However, tolerance to the effects of ketamine has been documented.

When the effects of ketamine wear off the user may:

• feel anxious
• not recall what happened while on the drug (amnesia)
• have flashbacks long after the effects of the drug have worn off