Surprised Ketamine isn't listed. I figured they'd lump that in. On the other hand, ketamine is extremely addictive, despite what you might read online. I know several people who have given up everything to sustain their Ketamine habit.
Edit: VICE even named their recent Ketamine episode "Pissing Blood" for this reason. [0]
I had no idea this was a thing until the morning after I woke up from my first time partying around people who were using it. Someone took a leak and I hear, "Hah! Yep, there's the good ol' orange K piss," and I couldn't help but be surprised that it sounded like they were laughing at the fact they were pissing blood.
I should clarify - nothing against ketamine in small doses recreationally, just take care of yourself.
I have to call you on that.
Very irresponsible to say things like that with out context.
Like: Where does that factoid come from? Compare it to other known neuro toxins - alcohol obviously.
No. I will not take that seriously. "magnetic resonance imaging" of brains has very little value (not none) yet. I would pay attention to behavioural studies.
I hate ketamine. I hate its effects on me, and I really hate its effects on my friends. Makes them blithering boring idiots. I would not be devastated if there were serious health effects of moderate ketamine use (as there are for alcohol)
But this is bullshit anti drug propaganda. Just because the drug it is attacking is IMO a horrible drug, does not make it better
You have to use high doses extremely regularly for this to happen. The vast majority of users do not use it at high enough dosage or frequency to get anywhere near this.
What I can say is a similar thing, that it can cause _dependence_ very rapidly. It can be extraordinarily useful for healing certain mental health conditions, but tolerance builds rapidly, and people on the street are often trying to K-hole repeatedly, a basically pointless exercise. Sustained low-dosage usage seems to have fewer bladder effects, the tolerance combined with people using it as an escape (and preferring K-holes), as well as people who are already mentally broken having a nice lever to pull, is what can cause it to get out of hand.
This is not everybody, however. I think it depends upon the circles, and I think it is hard to see people do that regardless of the world. But your circles around you are also not the world at large. Please stay factually rooted in what you're sharing online. To me, substances that would be dangerous would be directly opioidergic or dopaminergic substances (opioids, nicotine, opioidergic hallucinogens) as opposed to one that is opioid _sensitizing_, like Ketamine (which lets it be a kind of opioid replacement for pain relief clinics, for example. Even infusions are helpful.)
It really is important that we all don't take our personal experiences to say "don't listen to what you hear online" too strongly, I guess even myself included here. Hope that helps shine an alternative perspective on the matter.
Ketamine is also a direct dopamine agonist (Ki=0.5uM at D2).
The opioidergic effects are indirect by re-sensitization (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3856727/) which is why it is used by pain clinics and possibly might contribute to antidepressant effects.
One potential theory hanging about is that if appears to indirectly agonize AMPA through blocking NMDA, and this is what leads to mTOR and then eventually BDNF modulation. However, if activating AMPA is the main goal to getting Ketamine's antidepressant effects, one could just simply take a racetam and be done with it. Racetams seem to be helpful but not drastic like Ketamine here is, which likely I think is because of some concert of fortuitous effects unique to Ketamine itself.
There are other offshoots, like how some metabolites of Ketamine affect how Ketamine is processed, leading to potentially incredibly complex cascades of metabolite interactions in the brain. But this is even more in the weeds and I've rambled enough.
In any case, something special is going on with Ketamine. Otherwise people could just take massive amounts of Agmatine (and L-Lysine along with it for the wise, mouth sores are not desirable) and be done with it. Interestingly, this seems to work for some, but it seems like more than the NMDA is what is necessary (for a side thread: see sarcosine, some of the related methylation supply issues, and how it's an NMDA _agonist_ at the glycine site but still has rapid antidepressant effects. Very strange, this whole business).
I love this topic so I get verbal on it, hope it was an enjoyable ride. :) :thumbsup:
I suspected, from personal experience with various NMDA antagonist that it's blockade has a similar effect on the dopamine¹ and nicotine/acetylcholine² families of receptors (but not on GABA³ nor CB⁴).
1- A few days after a dose of whatever the NMDA antagonist I currently had my ADD drug felt magical like the first month I took them.
2- As a teen I use to smoke... But I never smoked a cigarette again after trying to smoke during a DXM ( like ketamine, it's a substance with a really funky pharmacological profile ) trip. Every puff felt like it was my first puff but worse.
3- I take 1.5mg of clonazepam a night since I was 18 (I am over 40 now) and they had no effect whatsoever on my sensitivity nor my dependance. Clonazepam dependance is insidiously strong... it was prescribed for anxiety and insomnia, I never abused it, yet I cannot stop, each time I tried my attempt ended a few days later as I started to see scary bugs on the wall.
4- I used to be a pothead and while the combo is quite enjoyable they did nothing on my tolerance to cannabis.
p.s. Nowadays I read about drugs and I have as much fun as I did when I did use them... so I understand your enthusiasm, neuropsychopharmacology is fascinating.
p.p.s. If you didn't read this book https://archive.org/details/stahlsessentialp00stah I strongly recommend it !