In the past few years, ketamine has found its way back into needy nostrils, writes Anna Silman. She describes the off-label uses of ketamine over the past 50 years. A Schedule III drug for veterinarians, ketamine is still a concern when clinics are vandalized or when inventory shortages are discovered. We’re sharing this article so veterinary teams can see the attraction and emphasize the Schedule III status and protocols.
For a generation that has less free time for sprawling multi-day psychedelic trips, ketamine has an appealing choose-your-own-adventure quality.
Source: The Cut, November 21, 219. Link. Technically speaking, ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic, meaning that it numbs your body and makes you feel apart from your environment — like you’re watching your own life happen instead of living it. But that doesn’t begin to capture the weirdness of what it feels like to get high on K.
One possible outcome is thought-trains jump their tracks, anxieties float off like helium balloons, and everything becomes silly and warped, like filming a movie through a camera with a fisheye lens.
INSIGHTS: My decades old ketamine training includes a warning that off-label use in humans could create unannounced, disassociated episodes days or weeks later following the actual time the drug was used. Please, let’s reinforce the Schedule III status and protocols for all persons involved in the supply chain of this useful, staple anesthetic for animals. This is one thing that bears constant revisiting and education of the next generations of animal health pros.