I've heard it has a lot of promise in treating depression, decriminalization would allow for official medical studies.

Ketamine is schedule III in the US. That makes it less restricted than meds like adderall and most prescription opiates. Decriminalizing it wouldn't really matter for research studies.

It would really matter a lot for someone who got caught with a small amount of it, tho

Yes and that's a good thing, but I was responding to the claim that, "...decriminalization would allow for official medical studies."

Ah, that would explain it.

I was recently surprised to learn about how big of an industry already exists around ketamine therapy. A search in your area (if in the US) would likely turn up several clinics nearby.

Bay Area: https://bit.ly/2S3VNjW Austin: https://bit.ly/3ccj2zk

Oh awesome. I'm in ATX and have treatment-resistant depression (tried 15 meds) likely from chronic sleep deprivation (sleep apnea).

If anyone knows a dope (no pun intended) psychiatrist for general purposes in ATX, I could use contact info.

again, if drugs is what you need to "treat" depression then you probably have a much bigger problem in life that needs to be addressed rather than looking for another band-aid. depression is not some random disease you catch like a bad cold, it stems from personal or systemic issues that will only continue to feed into said depression until fixed.

Perhaps you should bring it up with psychiatrists prescribing people antidepressant drugs then? They will surely benefit of your expertise.

Can you imagine how idiotic someone would sound if they were saying that about type 1 diabetes, or maybe schizophrenia?

Robin Williams lived a pretty pleasant life, but he died of depression. If Robin Freaking Williams couldn't beat it, what chance do the rest of us have for successful self-treatment?

It -can- be messed up brain chemistry despite what all the "only therapy helps" folks who are out to make a buck and prevent people from at least trying it.

You might not be familiar with the mechanics of depression.

Different states are allowed to draw up different allowances, but Ketamine has shown significant promise in the realm of long-term depression treatment. I'd imagine this is mostly to allow for experimental treatments in that field to be allowed.

Ketamine is already legal for doctors to treat patients with and there are ketamine clinics in California.

I agree. Long term ketamine use can lead to some severe problems; addiction and physiological issues (destroying bladder, urinary incontinence, etc.) Not really in the same category as LSD. Only a very few and... brave ... people do LSD "recreationally" and in large quantity.

Ketamine may (or may not, I have no idea) have legitimate medical and recreational uses...but those aren't what worry me. Ketamine has a long history of being a popular choice to subdue a kidnapping victim.

I've heard about police using ketamine on arrestees to subdue them (often leading to serious health complications or death), but never non-LEO criminals. Found one news story where victim claims drug was ketamine, but seems there was just one big story, not many.

What is the scenario that concerns you?

I think ketamine's dosage (100s of mgs) and oral activity (low) is not conducive towards secretly drugging someone. To drug someone with ketamine without their consent, you'd likely have to inject them. If someone is injecting a victim with a drug to knock them out, ketamine seems like it'd be a lot safer than heroin and somewhat safer than benzos - both of which would have a higher chance of respiratory depression.

I suspect this "long history" is drug war propaganda - ketamine would be more expensive and less convenient than other similar options for incapacitating someone via injection.

If it's being used as a weapon, that sounds like it should be protected under the second amendment.

I imagine guns and knives are the most popular choices for subduing kidnapping victims, and they're explicitly legal because they can be used in that way

They meant as an ongoing way of controlling the kidnapee in a more cooperative state not the initial gun to the head "come with me, we're kidnapping you"

yes, i remember the tragic story of marcia moore

https://erowid.org/culture/characters/moore_marcia/moore_mar...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcia_Moore

A clear example of the dangers of astrology.

I meant her addiction and death are a clear example of the dangers of ketamine. The practice of astrology (believing in it or not) in itself doesn't necessarily lead to substance abuse. I'm personally quite interested in astrology as a framework and it's psychology.

There's nothing clear about this:

"the cause and circumstances of her death are still unknown"

"there are some conflicting accounts related to her disappearance and death"

You're making a lot of assumptions based on your own biases. I'm pointing out (tongue-in-cheek) that a different set of biases can create an entirely different narrative, equally correlated.

Ah, you're right.. I missed the tongue-in-cheek :-) ..but I remembered it from reading it in the Ketamine book by Karl Jansen long ago. At the time she was doing it daily and slept 3 hours a day.

Based on an 1998 interview with Moore's Journey's into the Bright World (1978) co-author Howard Alltounian, M.D. he wrote:

"Moore went to visit John Lilly at his ranch in Decker Canyon, Malibu. She was astonished to find that he was, at that point, describing "Vitamin K" (his preferred term) as an "extremely dangerous" substance. Lilly had just been through a massive binge ending in a near fatal accident, and out of his original ten person study group, one had "driven his car off a cliff" (Dr. Craig Enright) and another hd met an "equally lugubrious end" (Carol Carlssen).

"John Lilly's last words to me were, "You'd better be damn strong if you're going to play that game."... As this book goes to press I have once again increased the doses."

Moore disappeared from her house on January 14, 1979. Her husband spent a year searching for her, including journeys to Hong Kong and Thailand, places to which she had traveled in the past. Her skeleton was found in early spring, 1981, in the place where she had frozen to death. She had made a journey at night into the dark world of the forest, a potent Jungian symbol, curled up in a tree, and then injected herself repeatedly with all of the ketamine she had been able to find."

I am not sure if Howard or Karl are assuming things here.

That sounds very consistent with her husband's (Alltounian's) conviction that she committed suicide. I'm not sure what this says about the dangers of ketamine, especially considering that ketamine seems to mitigate suicidal ideation.

I had never heard this person's name before today, but I can easily imagine a different narrative: She was self-medicating for depression and might not have lasted as long as she did without the drug. Sounds like we'll never know.

A low dose has anti-depressive effects, but these are much larger doses. According to her husband she was addicted, and on Erowid there are reports of people getting addicted to it: https://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Ketamine_Addicti...

Regarding suicide people could get strange ideas due to ketamine, perhaps it's accidental death - perhaps she wanted to try the biggest dose to get the ultimate revelation and while being in the so called K-hole, the cold got her.

Like a few unlucky souls experimenting with psychedelics, they want to fly to close to the sun and fall down. Zoe7.

Ketamine or psychedelic use can be a form of self-medication. But you'd think that if she had depression it was written about after her death or mentioned in one of her books or articles

Ketamine is already available therapeutically. If I weren’t currently traveling I would be on it since I’ve been prescribed it.

Ketamine is currently a schedule 3 drug, it's actively used as medication.

Ketamine is already available in CA with prescription.

Some people have very positive experiences with it, however I believe it's also dangerously addictive, which does make it stand out compared to the others.

Though, I'm sure the risk of ketamine is still better controlled in a legalized environment, hence it's inclusion.

Ketamine addiction liability is low–moderate[1], not dangerously addictive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketamine

Yeah, my wording could've been better. I was referring to that I've heard some horror stories of those who do get addicted. Overuse is really hard on the body. IIRC incontinence / bladder issues specifically.

I think it's an interesting issue you also see with some people and weed. The drug by and large is "too safe". Since fucking yourself up with it is actually kind of hard people get too comfortable and sort of slide down the slope from every so often to daily much easier than something you know is "dangerous".

Basically you respect heroine/meth/coke/etc since you know you can OD and it's doing all sorts of damage to your body but K is "safe" up to the extreme ends so people sort of handwave the risks away.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation

Very true.

If I recall correctly about ketamine, the mind altering effects diminish without sufficient restorative period between dosage. This could further be an issue in two ways. Individuals may associate the effects of ketamine to the mind altering effects only, not realising that it affect the body even if they're not getting the same high ("what I can't perceive can't hurt me"). It could also make individuals try higher dosage more often ("maybe it's bad product, it didn't do anything last night, let's try again").