There is a new mind-altering drug that is making its way into the anti-depressant field that could potentially change the way that some doctors treat depression: ketamine.  

With research continuing to be done on this supposed wonder drug, ketamine has been shown to be able to relieve severe levels of depression in a few short hours, thus encouraging doctors to give this to some of their more unstable patients.  The trick, however, is that this is all being done without ketamine being approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treating depression.  

David Feifel, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego said, “It became clear to me that the future of psychiatry was going to include ketamine or derivatives of ketamine” after he had begun administering the drug to his patients in 2010.  

Originally, ketamine was developed to be used as an anesthetic and was able to eventually receive FDA approval in 1970.  However, several decades later the drug developed into a popular psychedelic club drug, otherwise known as “Special K.”  Later, in 2006, a team from the National Institute of Mental Health then published a significant study which showcased that even a single intravenous does of ketamine produced significant as well as rapid antidepressant effects within a few hours.  

Since this time, there are now thousands of depressed patients who currently receive “off-label” treatment for depression.  Currently, the drug is difficult to receive officially because it is still in the experimental stage, and many of those who desire to be a part of the research study suffer depression and can occasionally have suicidal thoughts, thus removing them from the possible pool of people.  This is because doctors refuse to prescribe a mind-altering drug to a person with a mental illness.  

However, there are some risks to this new potential drug.  Since this medication has a history of being used as a party drug, it is classified as having addictive tendencies.  This can be attributed to its use as an anesthetic for children who arrive in the emergency room with broken bones.  Another risk to consider is how its effects vary from person to person.  

Feifel remarked, “One patient whose depression would disappear like magic after a dose of ketamine…we could never get it to sustain beyond maybe a day.”  

Beth Hellenbrand, a senior at UW-L, said, “I think that ketamine needs to be regulated and investigated more thoroughly.  The side effects sound risky and the public should have more information available.”  

This is the risk that many doctors are taking with prescribing this drug.  With the FDA holding off on approval until after extensive testing, it will be difficult to determine how successful this drug can actually be.  The trick will not be how it makes someone feel in the short term with mild forms of hallucinations; rather, it will be how it can benefit a person in the long run and stave off those dark feelings of depression in the long term.