ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the wider context of ketamine use and associated risks both inside and beyond the confines of club and rave environments. It provides a brief history of the development of ketamine and its emergence as a recreational drug, detail the forms of ketamine consumed and modes of administrating ketamine, describe populations of ketamine users, and explain health risks associated with ketamine use. Ketamine is a pharmaceutical originally developed in the United States in 1962. Ketamine was developed as the medical community sought an easily administered anesthetic with few side-effects. Phencyclidine (PCP) originally developed in 1959, was a prototype agent in the search for new types of anesthetics. Ketamine is a non-competitive N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist. NMDA receptors are concentrated in the cerebral cortex and the hippocampus two regions of the brain important for higher executive functions and memory. Ketamine redirects the electrical impulses traveling between neurotransmitters and suppresses information entering the brain.
