Ketamine

Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic. It is a type of drug a doctor might give to put someone to sleep for an operation. Ketamine can also be used as a painkiller and a bronchodilator (which makes it easier for air to get into the lungs).^[1] In some countries it is used as an analgesic, for fast pain relief such as in bone fractures and in children. It has been or is starting to be used for pain relief both as a replacement for or use with opiates such as morphine with varing success.

It can lead to side effects when used medically. The profile of these side effects are generally the opposite of morphine, but the dose of ketamine is lower than a recreational dose and it is not usually enough to cause a high. Sometimes it can lead to a special type of hallucination which makes people feel detached,^[2] which is why some people use it as a recreational drug. As it can have severe side effects, it is usually not available as an over-the-counter drug.

Ketamine was developed in 1962 as a rapid-acting dissociative anesthetic that was used in surgery. It was approved for human use by the Food and Drug Administration in 1970. Unfortunately, abuse began along the West Coast and spread across the country by the 1980s. The illicit market produced new forms of the drug, available as powder, capsules, crystal rocks, tablets, and injectable solutions. The drug is largely abused by sniffing or by mouth.

1. ↑ Peck, T. E.; Hill, S. A.; Williams, M. (2008). Pharmacology for anaesthesia and intensive care (3rd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 111. ISBN 978-0-521-70463-2.
2. ↑ Bergman, S. A. (1999). "Ketamine: review of its pharmacology and its use in pediatric anesthesia". Anesthesia Progress. 46 (1): 10–20. PMC 2148883. PMID 10551055.