UK: Ketamine to be made illegal (updated 12/28/05)

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UK: Ketamine to be made illegal

http://uk.gay.com/headlines/8986

Club drug to be made illegal
Ben Townley, Gay.com UK
Tuesday 6 September, 2005

Ketamine, one of the most widely used drugs on the gay scene, is set to be made illegal by the end of the year.

The government will make ketamine, an anaesthetic with strong hallucinogenic qualities that was previously better known as a horse tranquiliser, a Class C drug by the end of year, according to the Home Office.

The news comes as a survey reveals the drug is growing in popularity, spreading further than gay clubs and into the mainstream.

A survey of 15 UK cities by the charity DrugScope has found that the drug is now widely available for low prices in more than half of the biggest urban areas.

This is despite the drug not featuring in the same survey 12 months ago.

According to anecdotal evidence, the growth may be because the drug is now being used on the same level as pills such as ecstasy in clubs across the country.

Additionally, drug workers say more and more young people – both gay and straight – are turning to ketamine because of other drugs becoming weaker.

"Ecstasy pills contain less MDMA than they used to and so it is more of just a stimulant than something that alters your state of mind,” a drugs worker in Birmingham told the charity’s Druglink magazine.

“People aged 18-25 are taking ketamine for a more trippy night out."

“It is popular in pre-club bars and has a big following in both gay and straight clubs,” Nottingham drugs worker Peter Hurd, of the drug counselling service Compass said.

“It is being taken with other dance drugs by middle-class people who like to party hard at the weekend and then go back to work in the week."

"The emergence of ketamine as a key substance of choice is an entirely new phenomenon since we last carried out the survey in 2004, when it didn't figure at all," Harry Shapiro, Editor of Druglink said today.

He welcomed the government’s decision to outlaw it, saying the drug was now available for just £15 a gram in London and Nottingham.

The average UK cost is thought to be double that.

The drug will be re-classed before the end of the year, the government says.
 
ooh! Yet another article on Ketamine in the British media.

They have all certainly picked up on DrugScope's survey and ran with it... :(
 
Why are gays always on the cutting edge, popularizing drugs before they hit the mainstream?

Anyway, I had thought it was already quite illegal. Still, bad news :(

--- G.
 
Morrison's Lament said:
Anyway, I had thought it was already quite illegal. Still, bad news :(
Click to expand...

In the UK, Ketamine isn't covered by the Misuse of drugs act and isn't a controlled substance. It is covered under the Medicines Ac, so possession is not illegal. :)
 
well, while my mailbox is filling up with google news alerts on the new ketamine scare in the UK ("killer horse drug"/"tekno smack"....thats a new one), i did run across something about a positive use for ketamine thats now being done in the US.

link

the article talks about KPT (ketamine psychedelic therapy) which was pioneered in russia and also in the past associated with MAPS, now being offered for the first time in the US for alcohol and drug addicts. the place is in florida and is called eleusis.

just thought i'd offer a positive note to all you ppl that might see ketamine as a powerful spiritual tool, and not a "killer horse drug" as this new level of paranoia in the UK would have us believe.

first ketamine was falsely demonized as a date rape drug, which it never was, and now its just being called a killer thats replacing MDMA.

as bur-rose said in that movie, "we are being systematically scapegoated and demonized".

far from being a killer, it is a very safe drug that is specifically used on the elderly and children cuz of its safety margin. i do agree it shouldn't be a party drug or a club drug or mixed with other drugs, but let's stick to the facts and avoid hysteria, please. shame on the media.

i speak from experience as a former k user. ketamine changed my life instantly and profoundly and helped shaped my concept of God, the unverse, life, identity and ego, the complexity of space and time, and helped overcome my fear of death. let the media publish that instead of this "horse" shit.
 
sorry, i just had to post a link to this article from the sun, cuz the picture and headline are so classically drug paranoia pulp. one for scrapebook.

:p 8( :p
 
while we're on the subject of ketamine, i found this interesting from the phillipines. apparently there are k labs in asia now. and ketamine is a methamphetamine derivative? and is the drug of choice in australia and the USA?

"Besides marijuana, the drug syndicates are eyeing the sale of other methamphetamine derivatives such as ketamine.

Four ketamine laboratories were dismantled this year by joint teams of the task force and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.

Ketamine is an anaesthetic for veterinary, specifically horses, as well as human use. The drug takes the form of a white crystalline powder, a liquid, or a tablet and is the drug of choice among addicts in the United States and Australia, commonly sold at dance parties or “raves.”

As a result, antinarcotics agents seized 32,300 vials of the drug, 38.83 kilograms in powdered form. "


link
 
If it's OK with the mods, I'll re-post the article I typed up from yesterday's Metro newspaper and posted in EDD. Metro is a free newspaper that is available around train stations, tram stops, tube stations, etc. in the UK.



METRO newspaper
Tuesday, September 6, 2005

Vietnam drug 'is the new ecstasy'
by Aidan Radnedge

A drug used to tranquilise horses and wounded soldiers who need limbs amputated is rivalling cut-price ecstasy as the drug of choice among young professionals.

The hallucinogenic ketamine, known as special K, is being taken by revellers determined to get the ultimate weekend high.

Its popularity is rising fast even though the price of ecstasy pills has dropped to just 50p in some parts of the country.

However, ketamine, also caused techno smack or vitamin K, can bring on a heart attack when mixed with other drugs or alcohol.

The growing use of the drug, which sells for as little as £2, has been highlighted by the charity DrugScope. It found the substance on sale in eight out of 15 cities.

The charity says ketamine is being taken with other dance drugs by 'middle-class people who like to party hard at the weekend and then go back to work in the week.'

Rehabilitation worker Neil Venables said ecstasy pills contained less hallucinogenic than they used to, so were being used as a stimulant rather than for a mind-altering experience. 'People aged 18 to 25 are taking ketamine for a more trippy night out,' he added.

'You can spot them on the dancefloor because they're not dancing, they're sitting down in a bit of a vegetative state.'

Ketamine has been used on Vietnam battlefields and at train crash scenes to anaesthetise people having their limbs amputated. It is commonly used by vets to anaesthetise large animals.

It also causes loss of memory and has been linked to date rapes.
 
anhalonium9 said:
sorry, i just had to post a link to this article from the sun, cuz the picture and headline are so classically drug paranoia pulp. one for scrapebook.
Click to expand...

That article is scandalous. It's just... well... lies! It makes me mad! :p

How can they get away with shit like this?
"Experts fear the appeal of ketamine — nicknamed Special K — is its high level of the mind-altering substance MDMA, the main ingredient of Ecstasy."
 
You have to be a complete fucking idiot that never passed a single chemistry course to come up with a sentence like that.

--- G.
 
anhalonium9 said:
apparently there are k labs in asia now. and ketamine is a methamphetamine derivative? and is the drug of choice in australia and the USA?
Click to expand...

Ketamine is definatly not the drug of choice in the US. It does seem to be making a reapperance though
 
I can't believe Ketamine wasn't illegal already! Time to stock up and hide it with the mushies then I guess :p
 
Modification Orders to the Misuse of Drugs Act generally come into effect on the 1st of Jan or July, so anybody wanting to legally try ketamine in the UK has about 3 months before it becomes verboten.

The clock is ticking
 
apparently ppl jus don't know what to make out of something like ketamine. it's too damn weird for mainstream society to even comprehend.
to quote a famous psychedelic researcher "ketamine is a frankenstein molecule". we jus can't have ppl going around traveling the cosmic matrix with no egos, now can we. i love the shock value, tho. it's fucking hilarious cuz the media has no clue what's going on. they can't stop it, cuz ketamine is irreplacable in legit medical practice, and there are a million ways to divert it from anywhere in the whole world. and nobody seems to be able to figure out just exactly what it is?

god in a vial. just repeat again and again until the vial is gone.
 
7zark7 said:
"Experts fear the appeal of ketamine — nicknamed Special K — is its high level of the mind-altering substance MDMA, the main ingredient of Ecstasy."
Click to expand...

Hehe, I nearly fell off my seat reading that today on my lunch break =D

Definitely the most absurd sentence I've read in a drug related article in a long time.
 
Maybe reporters, or some of them, are fully aware of the drug they are reporting but choose the flashier, cashier approach; even if it means posting bullshit.

Have you ever seen an article on drugs that was correct? Something is obviously askew here...

Anyways.. So in Britain, can you go to a store or go online and just buy it like paracetemol?
 
its not popular in aus but its hella cheap its definatly on the rise tho
 
"Besides marijuana, the drug syndicates are eyeing the sale of other methamphetamine derivatives such as ketamine.
Click to expand...

Notice how the wording so confidently suggests that, not only is Ketamine a Methamphetamine derivative, but so is marijuana! :D.

Though.. I don't think scheduling Ketamine in the UK will have any effect on its recreational use patterns. The only effect it will have is more headache for veterinarians and pharmacists...

Now excuse me while I go get spun on marijuana.
 
CreativeRandom said:
Anyways.. So in Britain, can you go to a store or go online and just buy it like paracetemol?
Click to expand...

Nah, it's controlled under the Medicines Act so it's illegal for someone to sell it unless they're a licensed pharmacist, and the buyer has a valid prescription.
 
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