Only fools and horses take the drug ketamine, if scriptwriters of The Archers are to be believed. Fools such as Jazzer McCreary, a Glaswegian transplanted to Ambridge and found unconscious on the toilet floor of the local pub, The Bull, prompting landlord Sid Perks to declare that the young tearaway had only himself to blame for his subsequent trip to intensive care. Like many a Radio 4 listener, no doubt, Sid can't understand why anybody would deliberately ingest a horse anaesthetic. Ketamine - also known as "Special K" - is, after all, a drug that vets use specifically to avoid kicks.
If you thought that Special K was just a breakfast cereal, then you are not alone. Ketamine was a relatively low-profile drug until its outing on Britain's longest-running soap opera. Supplying it to others is illegal under the Medicines Act. Possession, on the other hand, is not an offence because, unlike the better known ecstasy, ketamine is not yet classified under the Misuse of Drugs Act. Its misuse, however, is not confined to country boys. Frequenters of dance clubs, squat parties and rock festivals have been aware of it since the early 90s.
"A colleague of mine saw it in tablet form, cut with other substances, at last year's Reading festival," says Dr Simon Underhill, senior anaesthetist at Wrexham Maeler hospital. "He found people zonked out, in a very strange state."
But when they came round, would they suffer from permanent short-term memory loss, like Jazzer?
"Ketamine wouldn't do that on its own because it maintains heart and blood levels," says Underhill, one of several experts consulted over the Archers storyline. "My advice was that he should inhale vomit while under its effects. That could give him severe pneumonia which, in turn, would reduce oxygen levels and impair the nervous system."
This is not an unlikely scenario. Regular users quickly build tolerance and the more ketamine taken, the higher the chance of passing into a lengthy coma. "Some people do become dependent on ketamine in a way that resembles cocaine dependence, with craving," says Underhill. "However, there is no withdrawal syndrome if the drug is stopped."
With higher doses (200mg or more), unconsciousness may be preceded by numbness of the limbs, strange muscle movements and nausea. And the dangers are exacerbated if it is used at the same time as depressants, such as alcohol, barbiturates, heroin or tranquillisers.
