Ketamine



What are the street names/slang terms for it?
Breakfast Cereal, Cat Valium, Date Rape Drug, K, Ketaject, Ketalar, New Ecstasy, Psychedelic Heroin, Special K, Super-K, Vitamin K

What is it?
Ketamine hydrochloride is a central nervous system depressant and a rapid-acting general anesthetic. It has sedative-hypnotic, analgesic, and hallucinogenic properties. It is marketed in the US and a number of foreign countries for use as a general anesthetic in both human and veterinary medical practice.

What does it look like?
Ketamine is a white powder, similar to cocaine.

How is it used?
Normally found in liquid injectable form, it is converted into a powder and re-packaged in small Ziploc bags or capsules. Ketamine is generally snorted but is sometimes sprinkled on tobacco or marijuana and smoked. Special K is frequently used in combination with other drugs, such as Ecstasy, heroin and cocaine.

The hype:
"It's like being drunk but with a body high - exhilarated," "Puts you in a dream state - where everything's vague, misty, slowed down" and "You'll experience 'K-Land', a mellow, colorful 'wonder world.'"

The reality:
"I dropped into a K-hole and couldn't move. I didn't know where I was and couldn't respond to anything for about two hours. I thought I'd died," "All of a sudden, I felt like I was falling - everything was completely black and I couldn't hear or see anything. I felt alone, scared and completely freaked out. I was conscious, but I couldn't snap out of it" and "I'm depressed all the time and my memory is totally screwed up."

What can happen while you're high?
Effects can include profound hallucinations that include visual distortions and a lost sense of time, sense and identity. Other effects can include delirium, impaired motor function, amnesia, potentially fatal respiratory problems, convulsions, and vomiting when mixed with alcohol, and out of body experiences. It has become common in club and rave scenes and has been used as a date rape drug. Higher doses produce an effect referred to as "K-Hole," an "out of body," or "near-death" experience.

What can happen long term?
Research is not available on the long-term effects of Ketamine in humans.

Source:
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)