Medical professionals are constantly searching for new and improved ways to treat patients and administer medication with minimal side effects. Medicine is a practice, and as such, has continually changed over the decades to modernize and synthesize pharmaceuticals, protocols, and treatment options. Several drugs have seen decades’ worth of evolution, but ketamine has an exceptionally varied past. From its origins as an anesthetic to its current use case for treatment-resistant depression, ketamine has been used widely for many purposes. Including as a popular party drug when used recreationally. This brief history of ketamine explores the evolution of the multi-purpose wonder drug known by many names, such as Special K, Vitamin K and Kit Kat.
The History of Ketamine Explained
Clinically useful and scientifically fascinating, ketamine has more use cases than many drugs. It’s an anesthetic, psychedelic, and dissociative drug that can simultaneously work on the body and mind while psychologically separating the two. The widespread uses of ketamine have shifted from medical to recreational and back towards medicinal over the past 59 years. From inception to continued exploration, ketamine is here to stay.
Discovery of Ketamine
During the 1950s, doctors in Detroit, MI, worked towards finding the best drug for pain management with optimal analgesic and anesthetic properties. It was then that the Parke-Davis and Company’s laboratory discovered a drug that was named phencyclidine. The doctors gave it the trade name Sernyl, but this chemical compound is known today as PCP. While the analgesic properties were effective on animals, there were some complications noted by medical personnel. Muscle relaxation was less than optimal, but doctors were hopeful that human test subjects would show better results.
Unfortunately, this was not the case. During operation using only Sernyl, five of 13 patients showed signs of severe excitation. The postoperative recovery period was prolonged for many patients, and 10 out of 64 were unmanageable after surgery. Although the anesthetic effects were promising, eventually, doctors decided that Sernyl was not the best solution for human patients.
Researchers continued to discover this wonder-drug they were envisioning, and in 1962, the merging of an amine and a ketone gave birth to ketamine. By 1964, this synthesis was deemed stable and ready for testing. The first test subjects were volunteer prisoners. These patients described their experience as physically numbing, as they could no longer feel their limbs while intoxicated on the drug. Additionally, they expressed feelings of floating, as though suspended in space. The researchers noted that the patients appeared to be untethered from their bodies and perhaps even their realities. Ketamine was officially — and appropriately — dubbed a dissociative anesthetic.
Clinical Use of Ketamine
Ketamine was first patented in 1963 in Belgium for use as a veterinary anesthetic. In the US, Parke-Davis and Company extended its patent to cover human use in 1966. The United States Food and Drug Administration then approved ketamine for human consumption in 1970 and signed off on using the drug as a field anesthetic for soldiers during the Vietnam War.
In the 1970s, France took ketamine to clinical trials and discovered that ketamine was indeed a potent anesthetic, though it was less powerful than PCP, with a shorter duration of action. Patients unanimously indicated hallucinations to be an uncomfortable and undesirable side effect. Understanding dosage and administration methods (intravenous vs. intramuscular injection at first) led to side effects that resembled schizophrenia — auditory and visual hallucinations, altered perception and cognitive confusion.
Although ketamine was particularly effective at anesthetizing children with fewer side effects, the concerns surrounding the psychedelic effects of ketamine were overshadowed by a new intravenous drug called Propofol. The introduction of the milder yet highly effective Propofol led to the rapid decline in the use of ketamine in medicine. However, recreational use was on the rise. Ketamine abuse began in response to the availability during the Vietnam War and its presence on the East Coast of the US. With recreational use continuing to increase, the Drug Enforcement Administration labeled ketamine a Schedule III Controlled Substance in 1999. Ketamine is still widely used in hospitals, veterinary clinics and doctor’s offices today.
Ketamine as a Party Drug
Ketamine is a strange drug. At microdoses, it can provide mildly euphoric, sedating effects that are described as “floaty”, “blissful”, and “dreamy”. But in larger doses, ketamine can result in temporary full-body paralysis, with the inability to operate one’s limbs. It’s difficult to imagine ketamine as a party drug, but a 2013 Global Drug Survey reports that half of UK drug users have taken ketamine in a club environment.
Ecstasy was the original club drug. It prompts the brain to release powerful bursts of dopamine and serotonin, leaving the user in a state of euphoric bliss, with strong emotions and feelings of connectedness to others. And then there’s ketamine – the dissociative anesthetic that much more closely resembles a downer than an upper. Ketamine is like the opposite of ecstasy and MDMA, jamming up the neurotransmitters that would otherwise promote feelings of connection, instead separating the body from the mind. The desire for presence is overshadowed by a desire to retreat within.
Even though ketamine is often combined with other drugs for an experience like kitty flipping, many club-goers in the UK party scene are not welcoming to the new ketamine hype. It downgrades the upbeat vibes that tend to accompany MDMA and turns the party into a slower, more mellow environment. The fast-paced nature of electronic and house music is not made for people that are best suited for an evening on the couch. This is also why ketamine is popular for personal, at-home drug use. As mentioned above, larger doses of ketamine can result in what’s known as a “k-hole”. This is when the body has succumbed to the anesthetic properties and the mind has seemingly left the body. Users report this dissociation to be like a near-death experience, where they have the ability to watch their body from above while feeling wholly disconnected from themselves, and potentially from all reality.
The Future of Ketamine
Presently, ketamine is used in a clinical setting for various medicinal purposes. Treatment-resistant depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and bipolar depression are a few reasons people seek ketamine infusion therapy. In 2019, the FDA approved a ketamine nasal spray, called Sprovato, for use in treating depression. Some patients are even reporting benefits after a single dose of ketamine. So what does the future hold for ketamine?
Researchers are back at the drawing board when it comes to medicinal uses for ketamine. Exploring proper administration methods, dosing, and managing patient protocols are being sufficiently studied in attempts to hone in on the maximum benefits. Long-term or abusive use of ketamine can result in harmful side effects that can damage the kidneys or liver. Ketamine cystitis is a term coined for the overuse of ketamine that causes the bladder’s walls to shrink and harden. K-cramps are another complication of ketamine that can cause extreme abdominal pain for users.
However, as with all drugs, side effects are a possibility. But for those suffering from extreme symptoms of depression, such as suicidal thinking, ketamine infusion therapy is a promising glimmer of hope.
More About Ketamine
For anyone who would like to learn more about ketamine, check out Ketamine Resources. This guide covers the research being conducted on multiple studies on ketamine therapy and how you can volunteer to participate in a study. With several book and documentary suggestions, there are plenty of ways to learn more about ketamine and perhaps discover if it’s a viable treatment option for you. If you have any experience with ketamine, we’d love to hear about it. Drop us a comment below!