NIMH researchers gave low dosages of ketamine to 18 chronically depressed patients, and their condition improved within two hours. Snip from High Times The Washington Post article by Neely Tucker:
Ketamine, sweet ketamine, answer to our glutamatergic dreams. In the long November night of the soul, in the ever-dark downpour of depression, it turns out that there might be a better umbrella than Prozac and Zoloft and Paxil and their serotonin-loving ilk.
Of course, when it comes to antidepressants, nobody really knows anything, anyway, so why not go with ketamine, a mild hallucinogen known to club freaks as Special K?
Link. This Wikipedia item includes links to previous studies on the drug's effectiveness as an antidepressant.
And, just so you know, the stuff also goes by the names "K, Ket, Special K, Riddle, Horse, Spesh, Vitamin K (not to be confused with the true vitamin K), Smack K, Kit-Kat, Keller, Barry Keddle, HOSS, The Hoos, Hossalar, kurdamin, kiddie, Wonk, Regreta and tranq."
Reader comment: Some readers wrote in to dispute the notion that ketamine sometimes goes by the street nym "horse," which is more commonly used to describe heroin. Yeah, well, take it up with the crack whores who wrote that Wikipedia entry I quoted. And a piece of advice: never get into a linguistics argument with a ketamine junkie, particularly a Wikipedia editor who is a ketamine junkie. THEY ALWAYS WIN.
BB reader Alex Rice says,
It also goes by the name "K-Fed", right? I just want to be sure so I don't look silly asking my doctor for a prescription.
Matthew Hutson says,
You quote Wikipedia saying a nickname is "Vitamin K (not to be confused with the true vitamin K)".
I found it funny that on the same day that WaPo article was published, the Times published an article on the "true" vitamin K: Link.
(My commentary on the coincidence is here: Link.)
Also, here's more informative article on the ketamine depression study: Link
(published in Tucker's paper 7 weeks before Tucker's article.)
