OFFICIAL NAMES: Ketamine hydrochloride, Ketaject, Ketaset, and Ketalar.

STREET NAMES: K, ket, quick, Lady K, special K, vitamin K, Kit-Kat, green, blind squid, jet, super acid, honey oil, cat valium, super C

DRUG CLASSIFICATIONS: Schedule III, dissociative anesthetic

Overview

The original name for ketamine was CI581. Its discovery is credited to Dr. Calvin Stevens of Wayne State University who isolated the compound in 1961. The pharmaceutical giant Parke-Davis funded its development as an alternative to the anesthetic phencyclidine or PCP.

Ketamine is a fastacting intravenous or intramuscular anesthetic used primarily by veterinarians. It has unique hypnotic (sleep-producing), analgesic (pain-relieving) and amnesic (inducing short term memory loss) properties that in proper doses does not depress breathing, making it highly prized by surgeons. No other drug in clinical use combines these three important features.

Ketamine was first used clinically in 1970, and was thought to be an ideal...