BODY & MIND
Club Drugs: Effects, Risks, and Addiction
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Crystal Methamphetamine
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GHB
Ketamine
Poppers
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Crystal Methamphetamine
Ecstasy
GHB
Ketamine
Poppers
Cocaine
Heroin
| FEATURED CLUB DRUG: KETAMINE | |
| Street Name: K, Special K, Ket, Ketanest, Ketaset, Ketalar, Vitamin K, Kitty | |
| What It Is: A so-called dissociative anesthetic with mild hallucinogenic and analgesic (pain-relieving) properties that is most often used in veterinary medicine. | |
| What It Does: Ketamine blocks the transmission of electrical signals between the brain and the spinal column, producing the feeling of an out-of-body experience. | |
| Dose: Special K comes either ready-to-snort in powder form or as a liquid that is baked into a powder. Some users inject it; some smoke it in a joint mixed with marijuana and tobacco. | |
| Duration: It is very short acting, with its hallucinatory effects lasting no more than 15 minutes and the total high less than an hour or two. | |
| Effects: At lower doses, ketamine produces a dreamy, floaty physical effect, often with numbness in arms and legs; higher doses increase the trippy sensations, often with mild hallucinations. Too much K can cause an extreme disassociation from your body, known as a “K-hole,” when you cannot move at all. | |
| Risks: In the short term, side effects can include increased heart rate and blood pressure, numbness, impaired attention, and temporary paralysis. Frequent use can result in amnesia, impaired motor function, delirium, and respiratory problems. Overdose is rare when K is used alone. But when combined with alcohol or other depressants, the danger of blacking out and stopping breathing is real. | |
| Addiction: Although physical addiction to ketamine is not a risk, psychological dependence on its dissociative effects can be. | |
