The drug Ketamine is now being advertised as a “treatment” for “depression.” Don’t be fooled; this drug is serious business.
Ketamine, categorized as a “dissociative anesthetic,” is used in powdered or liquid form as an anesthetic, on animals as well as people. It can be injected, consumed in drinks, snorted, or added to joints or cigarettes.
By “dissociative anesthetic” we mean that this drug distorts perception of sight and sound and produces feelings of detachment (dissociation) from the environment and self.
Short- and long-term effects include increased heart rate and blood pressure, nausea, vomiting, numbness, depression, amnesia, hallucinations and potentially fatal respiratory problems. Ketamine users can also develop cravings for the drug. At high doses, users experience an effect referred to as “K-Hole,” an “out of body” or “near-death” experience.
Due to the detached, dreamlike state it creates, where the user finds it difficult to move, ketamine has been used as a “date-rape” drug. The increase in illicit use prompted ketamine’s placement in Schedule III of the United States Controlled Substance Act in August 1999.
[Update 9/5/2018 from Consumer Reports] “All these drugs [Ketamine, Phenylbutazone, Chloramphenicol] are prohibited in beef, poultry, and pork consumed in the U.S. Yet government data obtained by Consumer Reports suggest that trace amounts of these and other banned or severely restricted drugs may appear in the U.S. meat supply more often than was previously known.”
Ketamine is being promoted as an intravenous treatment for depression by an anesthesiologist in the St. Louis area. It does not cure anything, any effect it does have is of short duration, and must be administered on a regular basis to have a continuing effect. Its actual mechanism of operation is not well understood, but one can see that as an anesthetic it simply reduces ones general awareness, so the awareness of one’s depressive thoughts are suppressed. These return once the drug wears off.
Note that “depression” is not an actual medical illness; it is simply a symptom of some undiagnosed and untreated condition.
Currently, ketamine is not approved for the treatment of depression, and so this is an off-label use. Ketamine use as a recreational drug has been implicated in deaths globally. 10% to 20% of patients at anesthetic doses experience adverse reactions.
Its use to treat so-called depression is unethical and actually harmful, since it precludes the patient from finding out what is actually wrong and getting that treated.
Go here for more information about alternatives to drugs.