Back in 2012 I was offered ‘Special K’ at Reading Festival. No, it was not the cereal (although I wish it was – Pot Noodles make a terrible breakfast when you’re hungover). A guy we were camping with was offering me Ketamine. I was going through my Rory Gilmore phase, so naturally said ‘no’. But this guy took some and then proceeded to crawl around on his hands and knees for hours. He was convinced he was a donkey.
Yet researchers at UCL believe this horse tranquiliser has potential for good, and have spent a year trialling Ketamine to combat heavy drinking. As a drug with trippy side effects, it has the potential to distort your fond memories about alcohol and stop cravings for it.
So how does the experiment work? The 50 participants are shown a picture of beer, and experts monitor how their brain reacts. They have to drink 40 units of alcohol a week and must drink 4 days out of 7. That’s the equivalent of around 20 glasses of wine.
After this, a dose of ketamine (or a placebo) is injected into the drinker’s body at University College Hospital. The scientists wait 48 hours and then monitor the volunteers’ reactions to pics of alcohol.
A lot of us don’t realise it, but when we see alcohol we immediately want a drink. Think about it. You’re at the pub and supposedly 'not drinking' because you’ve got a meeting at the ungodly hour of 8.30 the next day. But then your mate orders a cocktail and it’s so pretty and red and you can smell the strawberries from where you’re sitting. So, naturally, you order a pitcher.
Researcher Dr Ravi told the Evening Standard that this impulse is exactly what they are trying to combat. ‘They see that picture and it can inspire cravings, the feeling "I really want a drink." It is these kind of associations we’re trying to break down.’
Dr Sunjeev Kamboj, specialist in clinical psychology at UCL, told the Evening Standard that he sees Ketamine as a potential solution to these associations. ‘We had this idea that memories could be dismantled with this particular drug. It’s not about making alcohol less pleasant, it’s about reducing that habit of “drinking without thinking”’
Sure, when he puts it like that, it all makes sense. But aren’t we all ignoring the elephant (or should I say horse) in the room? Ketamine is meant to be used as a horse tranquiliser. That means it’s pretty powerful stuff – so should we really be injecting this into humans?
This is particularly worrying considering that the experiment involves injecting more than the typical recreational dose. If the guy I met in Reading thought he was a donkey from just a little bit of ket, then what must be going through the minds of these volunteers who are kept in a drunk/hungover cycle and then given a big dose of horse tranquiliser?!
It’s not just me who’s sceptical. Ketamine has a whole load of scary side effects.All you have to do is search 'ketamine' into Twitter to find a few horror stories and warnings...
So it poses a very ‘There was an old lady who swallowed a fly’ dilemma. If Ketamine cures our dependence on alcohol, then what will we need to take to cure our dependence on ketamine?
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.