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Street ketamine is almost always redirected pharmaceuticals. We used to buy cases of bottles unopened back in the 90s

This article says _was_ almost always: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-bc7d54e7-88f6-4026-...

In the specific case of ketamine, it’s easier and cheaper to acquire, and generally goes through far fewer intermediaries between the pharmacy and the street consumer. So the stuff you find on the street tends to be dramatically more pure than, say, cocaine.

I’m not an expert but I’ve heard that K is so easy to make and cheap, it’s rarely cut.

From what I remember from the Hamilton's Pharmacopeia episode on Ketamine, this synthesis is actually quite complex and a high-yield synthesis (which is presumably being used currently by manufacturers) is not published in publicly available literature.

However, ketamine is widely used as an anesthetic, so I think the "cheap to make" refers to Ketamine redirected from the pharma market to illicit channels, in which case "making" ketamine is just drying the solution to crystalize the sole ingredient.