my friend

RE: my friend

Hiya Anna,

If you put 'Ketamine' in google, youll get loads of results
Had a quick look at this one and it seemed useful

[link= http://www.talktofrank.com/drugs.aspx?id=188 ]http://www.talktofrank.com/drugs.aspx?id=188[/link]

Tx

Hi anna,

I have cut and pasted something i wrote for the staff at my drug project:

Ketamine.

Ketamine, K, Special K, Techno Smack, Vitamin K

What is K? There seems to be some mis-information about K around. It is a dissassociative anaesthetic and a STIMULANT not a depressant. (it blocks normal thinking wakes you up and increases heart rate)

Effects The effects begin about 5-30 seconds after an intravenous injection, 2 to 4 minutes after an intra-muscular injection, 5 to 10 minutes after snorting or intra nasal use and about 20 minutes after an oral dose on an empty stomach. That is very fast, and most drugs that you swallow are not this fast. (so not a good idea to drop before you go out especially if driving) Ketamine will last from 20mins to 1 hour if sniffed less if injected and longer (possibly much) if eaten.

Ketamine is not physically addictive, but thanks to its desirable effects and short duration, it can be extremely habit forming. There is now clear evidence of tolerance and dependence.
It should not be taken if you're anything other than emotionally stable and robust. Many regular drug users are completely surprised by the "first addictive psychedelic they have ever encountered"
Tolerance Bodily tolerance rises quickly with regular use and lasts for about three days.
Frequent users require increasing doses and many report a diminishing of the Ketamine high over time. So that larger and larger amounts are needed for diminishing returns.
Chronic users – mainly (but not exclusively) those who inject – can develop something close to permanent tolerance so, after months of use may be unable to experience the full psychedelic effects ever again.

Withdrawal Ketamine does not appear to produce withdrawal symptoms in chronic users. There are anecdotal reports of tension, twitchiness, poor attention span, and restlessness in abstinent long term users, but this may be due more to the sedative norketamine (a breakdown product of Ketamine) lingering in the blood stream.

Legality K is not controlled under the 1971 drugs act (so its not class A,B or C) It is controlled as a medicine, and therefore possession (in personal use quantities) is not an offence, however synthesis and supply are. Though this may be under review as we speak.

Appearance & cost Comes either in liquid or powder state (a white powder similar to coke in appearance) It is said to loose potency once made into powder and liquid is the preferred state amongst connoisseurs, 20ml evaporating into 1g, on a plate over a steaming pan, in the microwave or simply spread out on a mirror in hot countries.
K in the UK has increased in price from £300 to £450 a litre (50g) in 2004-2005 [retailing at about £80 a litre in India] which has pushed the price up on the squat scene from £6-10 a g to £15 (though K may go for up to £40 regionally or on club scenes)

Harm Min The number one danger is that you are quite helpless when on Ketamine. As you are not in charge of your body an anaesthetic is not a very good thing to take in a nightclub, you cannot walk, talk or look after yourself. Combine this with the inability to feel pain and trying to move about could prove a recipe for disaster. Even at home make sure you extinguish all cigarettes, candles and anything flammable that could be knocked over and preferably have a straight friend around as even getting to the toilet could prove hazardous. Practice safe sex (lack of feeling carries risks sexually) !

Overdose K has a good safety record and has been used since the sixties (1962) when it was invented by Calvin Stevens (Parke Davis).
In sub anaesthetic doses it does not lower heart or breathing rates which is why it is used with children or the elderly who are more susceptible to these risks with other anaesthetics. It has been used a lot (there are 6,000 papers on K in the medline database-3,000 on LSD and a few hundred on E!)
There have been very few deaths by pure overdose with Ketamine. Anaesthetists occasionally, accidentally inject people with 10 or 20 times the amount they intend , but those people have usually been fine. Psychedelic doses are about 10% of an anaesthetic dose so unless you are particularly foolish all that will happen is you will knock yourself out.
Ketamine and impairment to memory
Episodic memory refers to our store of personal events from the past. When we talk about someone losing his or her memory, it is usually this form of memory we are talking about.

Semantic memory is the term used to describe our knowledge about objects, people and the memory of words, so semantic memory encompasses a person's knowledge about the world. People who have had a brain hemorrhage can have problems with semantic memory, making it difficult for them to be able to find the words for common objects, even though they know what the object is.

Working memory lets us hold and manipulate information 'online' and so helps us to guide future behavior. Working memory enables us to solve problems and plan ahead. This is very important for learning as well as in everyday living. While taking Ketamine, people's episodic memory is very poor and higher doses can cause total amnesia for things that happened while under the influence of the drug. Ketamine also interferes with semantic and working memory so that people have difficulty following conversations and thinking logically when they take Ketamine,

Brain Damage One study(Morgan et al 2004) has now shown that semantic memory impairments associated with recreational Ketamine are reversible over time after people stop or substantially reduce use. However, impairment to episodic and possibly attentional functioning is longer lasting. Some users also experience mild forms of schizophrenic-like symptoms and perceptual distortions associated with the use of Ketamine after they have stopped using the drug. Users still experience some degree of impairment of episodic and semantic memory three days after use.
Ketamine blocks NMDA receptors which are crucially involved in memory and thinking, amongst other things. That is why so little of the Ketamine experience is remembered. People only remember a tiny fraction.

Psychedelic effects of Ketamine Quite common psychological effects of Ketamine are the sense of merging with other people and becoming inanimate matter, which is quite a distinctive Ketamine effect and not as common with LSD. People think they are merging with the wall or the carpet. Other effects are ‘out of body trips’, transcendence of time, experience of evolution, extension of awareness, and symbols. This is really what we mean when we say "psychedelic". The word hallucinogen does not really cover these sorts of things.
Psychological dependence Ketamine has got a tremendous capacity for creating psychological dependence and people have died as a result of that. The most famous of these people was MarciaMoore, who wrote the book called ‘Journeys into the Bright World’. She went out into the forest one night and injected herself with a huge amount of Ketamine and died of hypothermia. In fact, there are effects of Ketamine which are similar to being very drunk, such as trouble with talking, helplessness and death through exposure. There is some work by JohnKrystal which shows that some of the effects of Ketamine go through the same brain systems as alcohol. Ketamine blocks the action of glutamate, which plays a crucial role in thinking, memory, motion, language, sensation and perception. Ketamine isolates the brain and "wipes the stage of the usual players", and as a result things come up from the depths of your mind, and also from what we can call the ‘transpersonal realms’ in a sense the user can begin to develop alternate realities of varying degrees which may become confused or interspersed with ‘social reality’ .
Psychosis This raises the matter of psychosis. If you take a lot of Ketamine these different realities can start to interfere with your function in this one, and you can become very unwell from the point of view of what John Lilly called ‘the social consensus reality’.
Mixing and Interactions As said Ketamine is an anaesthetic and can thus cause unconsciousness though generally safe in recreational amounts as breathing and heart rate are not suppressed and slightly overdoing a ‘Bump’ will simply incapacitate the user for a time, when depressant drugs are thrown into the mix things can get a lot more dangerous. Alcohol, Benzo’s and Opiates which do suppress the breathing and heart rate become much more dangerous if the user slips into unconsciousness with the risks of choking or simply stopping breathing increase, many users will be familiar with the effects of mixing K and may feel they know their levels but set and setting along with a host of other factors can lead to misjudging dose and death, simple precautions such as buddying up (with a non user) and taking less K with each ‘bump’ will significantly reduce these risks. (Though as K effects memory it is not uncommon for people to forget how much they have taken L)
Stimulants: as Ketamine is a stimulant mixing it with cocaine, amphetamine, poppers or Viagra will increase the stresses and risks associated with stimulant use (and increase blood pressure) with the possibility that its pain masking properties could mask underlying symptoms. It is quite possible for chronic or even binge users to be completely unaware of serious medical conditions while under the influence of the drug (sometimes for days) I have known people to not know they had broken bones, cracked ribs, urinary and kidney infections, abscesses (skin and gum) as well as a host of less severe problems.

Drug addiction of any sort is usually linked to "karmic debts" = debts of energy of high levels.
One of quickly working methods is so-called "firewalking" = running on live coals with a lot of preliminary training, better in a GROUP which practices this method. The collective "mind" and energy of a group session can support, encourage and, most important, protect a newcomer from burns.
Th idea is, fire plasma interacting with human energy system cleans energy paths, dissolves blocks and strongly activates immunity.
However the frauds may do serious harm, so the main problem seems
to find the right group/community[can't recommend any as I'm not Britain].
Women's drug addictions generally considered more serious than
men's.

Um, 'karmic debt"?? firewalking??? probably not the best ideas for someone with ongoing drug/alcohol issues to juggle with....

Instead try referring your friend to one of the many drug/alcohol agencies you have in Brighton...it is probably one of the best served areas around for such issues, start by checking yellow pages and or local internet pages...

Blessings,

Shine

Hi all

Thanks for your replies and advice/info...

I can see where you're coming from Alks123 with the firewalking but also what Shine's saying is quite true I think my friend needs something more grounded and ongoing to overcome this.

To be honest Im not sure where to go from here as its down to her and she seems to have gone back to denying its a problem...Also I havent seen her for a while as I have a toddler and also I find it quite draining being around her. I do want to help but I know its down to her really to move on from it.

Many thanks

Anna

If your friend denies the problem it's tough situation.
There can be distant healing, a lot of work though, address
Healing and Prayers Forum.

Hi Alks123,
Yes its hard to approach it without being insensitive to her.
Thats a good idea about the healing list on here last time everyone sent healing to her she found a new,more positive place to live..
Many thanks,
Anna

If it's again drainy then she needs smth stronger than
distant reiki.

She may find "interesting" to watch real
addiction cases on med. educational movies and the same
sort of literature. You may stress, she, instead of supporting
those she cares of, will seriously complicate their lives.