But while Ketamine is a safe anesthetic, anesthetics are not safe for regular, recreational use. Users feel groggy and mentally sluggish after a Ketamine trip. That perceptible hangover gradually fades, but it actually takes the body several weeks to fully recover from a single hard dose of Ketamine. Plus, users rapidly build up a tolerance. No medical studies on the long-term effects of recreational Ketamine use have been published. However, anesthesiologists say heavy, regular hits of Ketamine over a sustained period--like doing enough to go into four or five K Holes a week for three permanently damage the nerves' pathways.
And while Ketamine is not physically addictive, some users develop a psychological craving. "I definitely start to get bored if I haven't done it in a while," says Paul. "I miss the intensity of the experience . . . the break from this reality." He shrugs. "Some people go to the movies. I do K." Paul says he first tried Ketamine in January. He did it twice in February, then four or five times in March. Last month, Paul says he took eight separate, heavy doses of Ketamine, sometimes going into a K Hole twice a night. Settings varied from a nightclub, a house party and the aforementioned rave to a Sedona camping trip.
"One time was just spur of the moment," he says. "I called up a friend to see if he wanted to hang out, and he was like, 'Yeah, I got a vial over here,' so I went over and we just spaced out in his living room." Paul has noticed no negative effects from his K use, and gives the drug "10 thumbs up."
Ryan, a 16-year-old from north Scottsdale, isn't so free with his praise. He first took Ketamine in February. "I'd never snorted anything before, and I had to get past that, because it made me feel like a junkie," he says. "But it was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it, the sense of traveling somewhere and coming back in just an hour. So I kept trying it." Ryan says his use peaked in May, when he was doing Ketamine every weekend. "Then one night, I took way too much and completely lost control. I couldn't feel myself breathing for a long time, and I thought I was going to die. And I was like, 'If I'm going to die, please just get it over with, because this is so miserable.' Now, just hearing the words 'Special K' makes me want to puke."
Several of Ryan's friends have started doing Ketamine in the last few months, he says, and that concerns him. "I don't think you expand your mind with this drug," he says. "My friends who do it, they're all creative, intelligent people. And when they're on it, they don't look like they're thinking intelligent or creative thoughts. They just look like they're gone.
