Karl Jansen

It is interesting to read a book that focuses on its hallucinogen effects along with the true risk of addiction instead of the drug's use in the operating room setting. This book does deliver both promises and even has a chapter on how addiction clinics can use a non-accusatory approach to reach the core birth trauma theory that compels some people to continue using it even though it only causes them euphoria without any true hallucinogen effects.

It focuses a lot of time on two famous addicted consumers: a free spirit New Age guru who took advantage her husband was an anesthetist to obtain the drug and ends up freezing to death meandering in a forest during the winter and a scientist who always had lucid dreams growing up who studied a lot on the drug for the US government. Both people had very different trips. The guru's trips were full of warmth and spirituality, the scientist cold and clinical. One starts to develop a second personality and dies by accident; the other retires and lives a quiet life near the beach.

The interviews about the feeling of trips by casual and chronic users are varied and interesting to read. The chapter on how plenty of people easily fall into the trap of addiction is far more educational than the tried and failed say no to drugs campaigns aimed at teenagers. The book is outdated in the sense Ketamine is now a Schedule II drug in Mexico. Any doctor can prescribe it, but it is hard to get because they only sell it in specialized surgical pharmacies in less than 20 cities.

An insufficient amount of time is used to talk about the discovery of the drug, its chemistry and medically oriented clinical effects, but the author is a psychiatrist and didn't write the book oriented at other doctors so the toning down on the medical verbiage makes a lot of sense.

If there is one complaint I have with the book, I feel like it meanders too much and doesn't really feel perfectly organized. Chapter 1 and the prologue are pretty much the same and even subsequent chapters go bouncing back and forth between varying chapters instead of neatly tightening everything up.

This is a newer edition of the book and the knowledge of ketamine for medical purposes has made huge breakthroughs when just 5 years ago, a plethora of studies on its almost miraculous use in severe depression without the disadvantages and adverse effects of SSIs started to bombard medical journals and made headlines. While the book mentions why racemic Ketamine can't be used in the spinal cord and briefly talks about newer drug versions with fewer hallucinogen effects, new drugs such as esketamine have been FDA approved for depression that haven't been mentioned in the book because it is now outdated. Esketamine is doing miracles even though at 6000 USD per biweekly treatment, it is too pricey for the average layman. With the pandora box open, even the US has centers where people get biweekly iv ketamine treatments under close monitorization with positive results.

While this book delves a bit too hard on the New Age wave and wanders around too much for my taste, I think doctors should give the book a chance just to be better informed on its recreational use.… (plus d'informations)