Use Your Brain on Drugs

A club drug called “Special K” is generating a lot of buzz among researchers who study depression.

That’s because “Special K,” which is actually an FDA-approved anesthetic named ketamine, can relieve even suicidal depression in a matter of hours. And it works on many patients who haven’t responded to current antidepressants like Prozac.

Those traditional drugs, which act on the brain’s serotonin system, can take more than a month to kick in, and don’t work for up to 40 percent of people with major depression.

“We can take care of a migraine in hours,” says Carlos Zarate, a brain researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health who is studying ketamine. “So why do we have to wait weeks or months with depression?”

Ketamine itself isn’t likely to become the next big drug for depression because it has troubling side effects, including hallucinations, Zarate says. But understanding how ketamine works could lead to safer drugs that are just as effective, he says.

When psychiatrists write a prescription for a typical antidepressant such as Zoloft or Paxil, they don’t expect their patients to show much improvement for a few weeks. Clinical trials, however, have shown that low doses of a drug known as ketamine, which is used at higher doses as an anesthetic and is taken recreationally as a hallucinogen (sometimes called “Special K”), can ease the symptoms of depression within hours. Now, scientists have figured out how ketamine works in the brain. In the process, they’ve uncovered a new molecular pathway involved in clinical depression.

WHAT IS KETAMINE?

• Ketamine hydrochloride (“Special K” or “K”) was originally created for use as a human anaesthetic, and is still used as a general anaesthetic for children, persons of poor health, and in veterinary medicine.
• Ketamine belongs to a class of drugs called “dissociative anaesthetics,” which separate perception from sensation. Other drugs in this category include PCP, DXM and nitrous oxide (laughing gas).
• Ketamine usually comes as a liquid in small pharmaceutical bottles, and is most often cooked into a white powder for snorting.

WHAT ARE THE EFFECTS OF KETAMINE?

• At lower doses it has a mild, dreamy feeling similar to nitrous oxide. Users report feeling floaty and slightly outside their body. Numbness in the extremities is also common.
• Higher doses produce a hallucinogenic (trippy) effect, and may cause the user to feel very far away from their body.
• This experience is often referred to as entering a “K-hole” and has been compared to a near death experience with sensations of rising above one’s body. Many users find the experience spiritually significant , while others find it frightening.
• While in a K-hole it is very difficult to move. People usually remain seated or lying down during the experience.

WHAT IS THE DOSAGE?

• Most people snort small lines or “bumps” for a mild, dreamy effect. The effect comes on within about 5 to 10 minutes.
• 100mg is usually enough to enter a K-hole.
• If liquid is injected into the muscle, less is needed to enter a K-hole. Effects can be felt within four minutes. (Ketamine is never injected into the vein).
• If swallowed, the effects come on in 10 - 20 minutes.
• Some people become nauseous after taking ketamine.
• Occasionally ketamine has been sold in a capsule as “Ecstasy,” although it is nothing like MDMA (real ecstasy). An ecstasy testing kit can be used to screen against fake ecstasy tablets.

BE CAREFUL

• While low doses of Ketamine can increase heart-rate, at higher doses it depresses consciousness and breathing and is extremely dangerous to combine with downers like alcohol, Valium or GHB.
• Frequent use can cause disruptions in consciousness and lead to neuroses or other mental disorders.
• Ketamine can cause a tremendous psychological dependence. The dissociation from one’s consciousness experienced with ketamine can be highly seductive to some people, and there are many cases of ketamine addiction.
• Ketamine is illegal and possession can result in long prison terms.