Categories: uncategorized
Tags: drug treatment, drugs, ketamine, Suboxone, methadone
Date: 03 October 2008 18:27:14
Now most people who read this blog will be well aware that I work for a drug treatment agency as a social worker. The majority of the work that I do is around prescribing alternative medication for those people who are opiate dependent drugs users. For example, dishing out methadone, Subutex, or more latterly Suboxone to heroin addicts. I also work with crack cocaine users with multiple problems and have a special interest in working with pregnant women who use drugs and alcohol.
Anyway, this week has kind of been fascinating, and exhausting in equal measures. Not only have we had three staff members off sick, but we have also been very busy, but I have also received a couple of really interesting referrals. The majority of our referrals are quite straightforward, with a large proportion of clients having additional problems such as homelessness, physical and mental health problems and child protection and/or childcare issues. However, in the last two weeks we have received two referrals for young men in their early twenties who are using vast quantities of ketamine. They were both well educated, in fact one had just completed a degree in chemistry with strong family support and yet they were both using this vile drug.
Ketamine is a dissociative anaesthetic and is generally used in veterinary operations, but occasionally in human surgery too. It is a brilliant pain-reliever but in large quantities sends people into something called a K-hole which is when they feel like they are having an out-of-the-body experience. It is really unusual for us to see ketamine users, let alone ones that are still quite young and very few people come to us with it as their primary drug of choice.
Anyway, I am not really going anywhere with this other than to so DON'T EVER TRY IT! The dissociative effect along with the anaelgesic effect can mean that you can injure yourself and not know about it until sometime later. Grim... grim and grim again.
Interesting what people will use though isn't it?