Advice

Ketamine is often taken for an out-of-body experience. Worryingly, is also used to relax farmyard animals. Find out more here...

What is it?

Ketamine is a relative of PCP (angel dust). It is used in human and animal medicine as an anaesthetic. Medical ketamine comes as a clear liquid ready for injection. Street ketamine is usually a white crystalline powder. Occasionally it comes as capsules or tablets.

Ketamine is normally snorted (inhaled through the nose). It can be swallowed or injected.

Ketamine is mainly in use today as an anaesthetic for farm animals.

How does it make you feel?

People use ketamine to get an out-of-body experience. It makes you feel as though your mind is detached from your body.

Small doses make you feel floaty, dreamy and trippy. Larger doses can give you powerful hallucinations. You may feel that you have entered another level of consciousness or crossed into another world. It is quite a supernatural feeling. People say that they go into the 'K-hole'.

You can get black outs. You might be unable to move, walk or talk and yet you feel fully awake. This can be very frightening.

Ketamine wears off in about 3-4 hours. Afterwards you might be left feeling sick and wobbly on your feet.

What are the health effects?

You are more likely to get a paralysis if you take ketamine by swallowing it. It has sometimes been sold as E and has given a lot of people a bad experience.

You can easily hurt yourself as you can't feel pain.

Don't mix ketamine with alcohol. That can be especially dangerous.

Regular use can lead to increased tolerance where you need more and more to get the same effect. Eventually it can lead to very serious mental health problems. People have lost touch with reality altogether as a result of this drug.

The law

Ketamine is an illegal Class C drug. The maximum penalty for possession is 2 years in prison and 14 for supply. You can get an unlimited fine for both.