Ketamine

What are the street names/slang terms for it?

Breakfast cereal, Date rape drug, Ketaject, Ketalar, New Ecstasy, Psychedelic heroin, Special-K, Super-K, Vitamin K

What is it?

Ketamine hydrochloride is a central nervous system depressant and a rapid-acting general anesthetic. It has sedative-hypnotic, analgesic, and hallucinogenic properties. It is marketed in the US and a number of foreign countries for use as a general anesthetic in both human and veterinary medical practice.

What does it look like?

Ketamine is a white powder, similar to cocaine.

How is it used?

Normally found in liquid injectable form, it is converted into a powder and re-packaged in small ziplock bags or capsules. Ketamine is generally snorted but is sometimes sprinkled on tobacco or marijuana and smoked. Special K is frequently used in combination with other drugs, such as Ecstasy, heroin and cocaine.

What are its short-term effects?

Effects can include profound hallucinations that include visual distortions and a lost sense of time, sense and identity. Other effects can include delirium, impaired motor function, potentially fatal respiratory problems, convulsions, and vomiting when mixed with alcohol and out of body experiences. A "K-hole" is the term users of ketamine use to describe an overdose experience

More Facts...

Because ketamine numbs the body, users run the risk of serious injury without even realizing they've been hurt.

Ketamine was first synthesized in 1962 at the Parke Davis Lab by Calvin Stevens. The original name for Ketamine was 'CI581'. Its synthesis came from a need to find an anesthetic to replace PCP.

Source: National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)