The Ketamine Connection
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
Actually, it is on the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines <http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/93142/1/EML_18_eng.... and used frequently and routinely in emergency procedures around the world, not just in "developing countries".
It has been a drug of abuse in the US, but nothing like the near-epidemic proportions going on in China. If the article is accurately describing conditions over there, it suggests it's probably only a matter of time before we'll see it in N. America.
Kind of ironic in a way. Here in Oregon cannabis is now legal for recreational use, and other states will probably join the handful that permit sale and possession of the drug. Widespread abuse of ketamine with harmful outcomes might inspire a new round of a "war on drugs" just as unnecessary controls on cannabis are being reduced.
Perhaps it might lead us to think that not all "recreational" drugs should be regarded as harmless or the same as others, and one set of rules does not fit all.
Edit: fix grammar.
Here's the recreational dosage numbers: https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/ketamine/ketamine_dose.shtm...
Upon some more research, it appears I'm wrong. K isn't being used to knock people out anymore. (idk, my mom is a retired physician and she talked about how heart surgeons used to knock people out with k.) On page six you can find battlefield doses http://www.health.mil/~/media/MHS/Report%20Files/201203.ashx After you convert erowid's mg/lb to mg/kg it's clear that they're just giving light doses.
You can find some reference to high doses of ketamine in this review article: http://www.annals.in/article.asp?issn=0971-9784;year=2015;vo... "Similarly, Marlow et al. found that in coronary artery bypass patients, ketamine (2 mg/kg) caused significant decreases in stroke volume when used as an induction agent."
tl;dr it varies. Also repeated/daily usage of ketamine is definitely bad and will make you piss blood.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketamine#Urinary_tract_effects
That only implies that if you do 5g/day, you will with near certainty get urinary tract problems. You can definitely get get urinary tract problems with much lower dosages.
Legitimately manufactured ketamine is typically in sterile saline solution at a fixed quantity per dose. This is because the usual medical route of administration is intra-muscular or intravenous injection.
For recreational use, (afaik) the majority is insufflated, or snorted. For this you need the dry, crystallised form.
You can either purchase it as crystal from your friendly neighbourhood drug dealer, or they may be able to supply you with vials diverted from veterinary or medical suppliers. To get this to a powder, you boil off the water "Cooking" and are left with a mixture of ketamine and salt.
The 2 biggest problems are trying to either rehydrate crystal powder for injection (because ensuring sterility and consistent dosage is hard), and that crystals are much easier to cut with other ingredients (because the legit. vials usually have tamperproof seals like other legitimate drugs).
The other point is that most people won't be injecting it right from the beginning. Only once they become tolerant and require high doses does the appeal of IM/IV's increased 'efficiency' (bioavailability) tend to override the common wisdom of not sticking needles in oneself.
From what I recall, most of the research has shown that long-term administration of high doses is where the damage is predominantly done, and even very high doses (1000mg would be a plausible dose for 'short term surgical anesthesia (15-25 mins) of an 80kg adult), if given very rarely, are not likely to cause harm.
But injecting that sort of quantity, multiple times a day, for weeks or months, is absolutely going to lead to problems, and even more of them if you're getting impurities or bacteria/spores along due to contamination.
I might have my terminology mixed up, but there is definitely a difference between crystallised and that which has been cooked (possibly again). Some of it might possibly be myth on there behalf, as in they don't get as bad a "k belly" or irritated bladder after a binge on the latter.
As well as the bladder/ut issues, snorting (anything) also leads to the corrosion of the septum and also the bone(s) that supports teeth.. Basically excessive use leads to teeth falling out.
I agree with the parent, this whole desire to vilify the monster-du-jour sometimes gets out of the hand, with the MSM frequently playing the willing companion to whatever government propaganda of the day is in vogue.
Can these drugs do damage if abused? Yes. So teach people not to abuse them, and, those who do, or become addicted, have medical issues that should be treated as such.
I'm willing to wager that not only would drug abuse come down, as light was shone on addicts rather than making them hide in the dark, but we'd also see reduced prison populations, and entirely eliminate a major source of income to criminal gangs.
This is probably the 1 Billionth+ time someone has made this argument on a forum though, so I don't hold out to much hope until the winds of sanity for, whatever strange reason they do, blow in that particular direction.
'If I was going to be addicted to any drug--it would probally be Opioids? It does the least damage.'
I'll always remember that statement, but I think he meant in a perfect world(where you could get legal, pharmaceutical grade product)? The addicts, I know, have so many ancillary diseases, and health problems--I don't think I would ever try it--even once. (I imagine the health problems are due to dirty needles, and unknown handling, and "cutting" of the drug?)
1) they've recently tried to quit and thus have a lower threshold.
2) they've somehow got much purer product than they're used to.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-3312699...
Heroin for addicts could be much safer than it is now.
http://www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9926585 - caffeine Toxicological Data on Ingredients: Piracetam: ORAL (LD50): Acute: 2000 mg/kg [Mouse].
http://www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9927475 - Piracetam Caffeine LD50 Acute: 192 mg/kg [Rat]. 127 mg/kg [Mouse]. 224 mg/kg [ Rabbit].
Presuming human equivalence to mice - A 185 pound person would need to ingest about 168 grams of piracetam as compared to around 10 grams of caffeine.
But - it's really important to note that both are toxic to the point of being fatal in easily digestible, relatively small amounts. Caffeine, in particular, can creep up on you pretty quickly - penguin mints are 1/2 gram per tin. (75 * 7 mg/mint).
Besides, it seems wider than just China and its descendants.
The problems with heroin are usually in conjunction with alcohol or other depressants, people using too much, throwing up, and then drowning on their own vomit, not having a clean rig, or, god forbid, sharing needles.. And, of course, using too much, and then dying from the toxicity.
The toxicity thing typically comes from the legal element - people don't know how pure a component they are using; also they do it alone with nobody around to help them when they get into trouble. If they did know the purity, and their tolerance, and shot up in a safe, clean and social manner - overdose deaths for existing users drop to zero if there is someone around to revive a person who is ODing. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/vanco...
But coming back to my main point - we can't have reasonable conversations about this, because "oooh, Heroin, Crack, Cocaine - scary evil monsters" - and all rational discourse goes out the window. If you brought this into the public light, then when people meet heroin addicts, become familiar with their situation, and realized what a stupid and possibly expensive addiction it is - you treat it like a disease and have zero interest in touching the stuff.
I will note, that I know an ex-heroin user who also quit smoking, and he said kicking the smoking habit was 10x harder than heroin.
Therein lies the problem: addiction does not readily yield to teaching not to abuse the drug. In the US there has been an intensive 50 year campaign to educate people not to use tobacco, yet nicotine dependence remains a top public health problem.
Addiction research has shown compulsive drug use is associated with actual alterations in brain structure and functional circuitry. Treating addictions has proven to be a notoriously difficult problem to solve, meaning prevention is a far higher priority than attempting to cure.
I believe the scientists studying the matter would disagree that rate of drug abuse would decrease solely on the basis of education, especially among the subset of the population that is most vulnerable to developing compulsive use in the first place.
Trouble is, drug response, including bad effects, is probabilistic. Exposing large populations to a drug with predictable harmful effects in a substantial subset, it's really a crap shoot who will wind up in trouble. Minimizing initial exposure to the drug may be a reasonable preventative strategy.
But don't take my word for any of it. Check out the scientific info sources for yourself, see: http://www.drugabuse.gov/
The states permitting wider use of cannabis admit it's a kind of experiment, a bet on the hypothesis that the harmful effects of it (abuse/dependence, MVAs, health problems, more child/adolescent use) will be offset by decreased burdens imposed by criminal justice systems. The jury's out on the question, we'll have to wait a few years before the verdict is in.
Cigarette use among teens is half of what it used to be 20 years ago.
Harm Reduction absolutely makes a difference. Many people develop unhealthy habits with drugs for the same reasons people develop unhealthy habits with food. They don't know any better and draw norms from the environment around them. Most people quit drugs within a decade anyways. In a way it's a problem that solves itself if you manage the destructive social/health outcomes of drug use(most of which are a product of drugs being illegal).
>But don't take my word for any of it. Check out the scientific info sources for yourself, see: http://www.drugabuse.gov/
Which sources for which claims? Posting to the front page of a blog isn't a source.
The problems are threefold: firstly, it does not impair you to the extent that you cannot "live," you can still limp along through a normal life high out of your mind on ketamine every day. This means it is not self-limiting in any way, and people are not forced to change until they are seriously ill.
Secondly, the tolerance curve is very steep. If you use it just a few times in a week, the very next week you will need to consume noticeably more. It continues in a sort of hockey-stick arrangement. This is how people suddenly end up on 5g a day, destroying their urinary tract with this caustic, highly alkaline stuff.
Thirdly, some people seem to just really like it. Ketamine has a subtle psychological effect that really seems to resonate with some people. I guess this is why its connected to long term depression treatment. Unfortunately when combined with the other two factors I have listed, it becomes a trap into which people can fall for a long time. Especially the young.
It's basically halfway between marijuana and heroin. It's as destructive as that sounds.
For the record, I'm in favor of the freedom to use drugs, but ketamine is nasty stuff.
It's people who are suffering from mental illness or who live in conditions that cause them mental anguish who usually become addicted to drugs in general. It's a form of escape and the community that dulls their pain.
The sooner we can start having sane, even-handed discussions about drugs the sooner we can start solving the root of the problem, which is not drugs, but mental illness and mental wellbeing. Sensationalist stories such as this one that completely ignore >90% of drug users and focuses only on the ones' whose stories are worth exploiting for clicks are not helping.
[1] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/jun/29/drugs-c... He cites 12:1, casual to addicted, in the USA.
"Free parties were popping up all over the country, and there were many in Bristol. That's when ketamine came flooding into the city."
Differentiation? Anybody? As far as I am concerned these so called "Free parties", aka outdoor raves, exist in most places of the world, as they cater for a basic human need to have a good time. Now when people enjoy themselves, they tend to drink, smoke and use various consumerables. We know Ketamine is big in the UK. Now how are non commercial social events connected to Ketamine?
Very, very unlikely. China has an almost complete ban on civilian ownership of firearms. The only exception is for rare hunting permits (there is very little hunting in China) and wildlife conservation. Even then traditional hunting tends to use blackpowder muzzle loaders (and they restrict ownership of black/gun powder)
They don't even allow regular cops to use useful firearms (they are issued a revolver that fires rounds with as much energy as a .22 LR ... enough to wound but not kill or even stop someone attacking police). They don't want the cops ever rebelling against the PLA.
The BBC wants us to believe that Chinese authorities allowed an armed militia to directly challenge law enforcement and did nothing about it for over a decade?
More likely that was just a story made up by bribed cops, cops who were shit scared of going into that village or cops/politicians who wanted extra credit for going into that village.
So I wonder how much else of this story is exaggerated by the journalist.
Fully automatic AK ownership, and even grenade ownership is fully legal in many or most US states, if you pay the required BATFE taxes and have the right permits (explosive storage permits for grenades) but so much wave one at a cop and you will be surrounded by armored cars and black helicopters sooner that you can blink.
They are some of the last people that outlawing guns is going to stop.
I have no idea what situations are like with respect to weapons in China, so I have no idea whether he's right or not, but this is not just about the legality.
Do you have a source to back that up? I think you can own a grenade launcher, but I'm quite certain that grenades are very illegal... possibly excepting smoke grenades.
Each grenade is legally a separate destructive device. Some States outlaw destructive devices, but they are legal under Federal law (with appropriate permits).
You don't see people with them because there are not many transferable grenades left in circulation. If you want to shoot a bunch out of a m203 launcher it's cheaper to go to Cambodia than exhaust US civilian stocks.