Ketamine anaesethtic
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Like LSD, MDMA
(Ecstasy) and its close chemical cousin PCP, Ketamine is a product of twentieth
century pharmacy, and to this day a healthy revenue source for 'big medicine'.
Ketamine was discovered in 1961 by Dr. Cal Stevens
of Wayne State University. The pharmaceutical giant Parke-Davis
(now Pfizer) funded its development as an alternative anaesthetic
to Phencyclidine or PCP.
angel dust
Now no longer made, PCP (or 'Angel Dust') gained a bad reputation thanks to its
unpredictable and frightening side-effects, such as psychotic aggression. Smoking
PCP is what got James Brown on the bad foot, while speeding in South Carolina
and waving a gun around.
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Ketamine was a useful battlefield anesthetic in Vietnam |
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paint it black
It's first practical use, however, was in Vietnam, as a safe and easily-administered
battlefield drug for US soldiers. Its wide safety margin in dose administration
was ideal for panicked jabs in the war zone.
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children and animals
In the end, Ketamine turned out to be a particularly safe,
gentle and effective anaesthetic, especially suitable for children and the elderly.
It is still widely used on people and animals all around the world including the
US and UK.
Almost every country in the world continues to use Ketamine
as a run-of-the-mill anaesthetic for people and animals, including the US and
UK. In nations like Mexico and India it is available as an over-the-counter pain-killer.
return to the womb
Only now are psychologists beginning to explore its potential.
It is currently producing impressive results in curing heroin addicts in St. Petersberg,
Russia.
And in Argentina, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Alberto Fontana y Col is studying
its use to induce near-birth and near-death experiences to treat neurotic anxiety
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