5 ms·

Everything acting on the brain is neurotoxic at sufficient doses. However, I would be far more worried about cardiovascular effects, for which life threatening

• cactusplant7374 2y ago
  Ketamine is widely used and it's very difficult to find deaths. Sure, one can die by taking it and getting in a hot tub or using it with other drugs. But on its own its safety profile is better than acetaminophen.
  • rscho 2y ago
    Acetaminophen is often chosen as a suicide drug because of its narrow therapeutic index. I don't think that means abuse of ketamine is that safe, having administered a lot of it. The effects at anesthetic doses are pretty spectacular.
    • cactusplant7374 2y ago
      Why aren't there huge numbers of deaths attributed to ketamine if it's unsafe? Ketamine is quite popular. When you look at opioids it's easy to find fatal overdoses.
      • rscho 2y ago
        I agree for opioids. And I'm certainly not saying there are 'huge numbers of deaths' linked to ketamine. Maybe specialK is popular where you live, but here long term ketamine habits seem quite rare, based on my totally unscientific impression. I also think ketamine abuse isn't very much studied, at least compared to more popular drugs. What I'm saying is that while a short term stint into ketamine probably isn't a big deal, I expect long term use with higher dosage ('ketamine hole', tolerance and all that) to be more dangerous. Having your blood pressure peak in the 250's can't be that safe when you start aging.