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.
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