This is WAY Scary!! Ketamine and Recreation in the Same sentence.

Tonight's news highlighted a recent drug bust in Ontario.  $5.8M in drugs and guns and money.  A significant portion of that haul was in the tranquilizer Ketamine.  I've had some experience with Ketamine.  In the professional sense.


During the summer of 1980 I worked with a PhD student as a field assistant.  Collaring wolves with radio collars required 'tranquing' the animals.  One story was of a wolf seemingly waking up mid procedure and clamping down on the person's arm, only momentarily but sufficient enough for the canine to puncture the skin.  And a visit to the local hospital to get a rabies shot.


In the summer of 1985 I had the good fortune of participating in the reintroduction program for the swift fox in south eastern Alberta.  Again Ketamine was used to tranquilize the little guys.  I had heard (rather frightening) stories about what it is like for animals to come out of their tranquilized state.  My older brother, also a wildlife biologist, had many stories in his broad and varied career with wolves, bison, otters, mountain lions, grizzly bears, and more wolves.  Violent, unpredictable, uncontrollable were common descriptors.


The most memorable (and not in a nice way) is the experience in 1995 when my daughter was born and my wife almost died.  She had experienced an internal hemorrhage that continued to flow unabated necessitating immediate surgery.    Leslie is such a tough nut that they had to give her quite a kick to go down and out.  Her exit from that circumstance only added to the already fearsome picture I had of what it must actually feel like - trapped inside that perspective.  The look in the eyes, pleading for a Saviour, scared beyond any imagination.  I will never forget the feeling of complete helplessness while she traveled those corridors and ran into those doors.

And now Ketamine has become a 'recreational' drug.  Dis-associative anesthesia.  Sound like fun?  Like the Veterinary doctor that says after 'tranquing' the horse. Don't be in the stall when he wakes up.  Holding the little foxes in my arms and trying to comfort them as their eyes danced and their legs thrashed and their bodies convulsed.  Still sound like fun?  


Mankind has experimented and relied upon a wide variety of substances over the centuries for recreational enjoyment.  Even manufacturing some of our own creation - designer drugs.  For whatever reason we humans require or believe we require 'something' to 'enhance' the experience.  This one is really not a good idea at all.