4 ms·
Certainly a fascinating slant on ketamine, more familiar to me from reports documenting benefit in patients with severe, treatment-resistant depression. In cli
by jrapdx3 11y ago
Certainly a fascinating slant on ketamine, more familiar to me from reports documenting benefit in patients with severe, treatment-resistant depression. In clinical applications the dose is very small vs. street use and not associated with the destructive gut and brain side effects described in the article. However it's not innocuous, hallucinations or psychosis, among other side-effects, are known, non-trivial risks.
It has been a drug of abuse in the US, but nothing like the near-epidemic proportions going on in China. If the article is accurately describing conditions over there, it suggests it's probably only a matter of time before we'll see it in N. America.
Kind of ironic in a way. Here in Oregon cannabis is now legal for recreational use, and other states will probably join the handful that permit sale and possession of the drug. Widespread abuse of ketamine with harmful outcomes might inspire a new round of a "war on drugs" just as unnecessary controls on cannabis are being reduced.
Perhaps it might lead us to think that not all "recreational" drugs should be regarded as harmless or the same as others, and one set of rules does not fit all.
Edit: fix grammar.
- civilian 11y agoThe use is really small? Uh, no. In operating rooms the amount of ketamine they use is to _knock out_ the patient. Recreational uses are only interesting because they have less than a knockout dose. If you did twice the amount of a clinical knockout dose, you'd just be more knocked out, you wouldn't be tripping. Here's the recreational dosage numbers: https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/ketamine/ketamine_dose.shtml https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/ketamine/ketamine_dose.shtm... Upon some more research, it appears I'm wrong. K isn't being used to knock people out anymore. (idk, my mom is a retired physician and she talked about how heart surgeons used to knock people out with k.) On page six you can find battlefield doses http://www.health.mil/~/media/MHS/Report%20Files/201203.ashx http://www.health.mil/~/media/MHS/Report%20Files/201203.ashx After you convert erowid's mg/lb to mg/kg it's clear that they're just giving light doses. You can find some reference to high doses of ketamine in this review article: http://www.annals.in/article.asp?issn=0971-9784;year=2015;volume=18;issue=2;spage=202;epage=209;aulast=Mazzeffi http://www.annals.in/article.asp?issn=0971-9784;year=2015;vo... "Similarly, Marlow et al. found that in coronary artery bypass patients, ketamine (2 mg/kg) caused significant decreases in stroke volume when used as an induction agent." tl;dr it varies. Also repeated/daily usage of ketamine is definitely bad and will make you piss blood.
- jawr 11y agoI think he was referring to it's use as an anti depressant: http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/04April/Pages/Ketamine-tested-as-severe-depression-treatment.aspx http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/04April/Pages/Ketamine-tested-as...