ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 24, 1995 TAG: 9512260032
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DIANE STRUZZI STAFF WRITER
The crystallized white powder burned his nostrils ever so slightly. The singe was welcoming. Within two minutes, the trip began.
His mouth went numb, his body limp. And he was propelled into an animated world where he believed he was the cartoon character Elroy Jetson. The car he sat in became the Jetsons' spaceship. He and his friends, who also had taken the drug, communicated only through beeps.
"Everything was misty, plaid-looking," the 22-year-old said. "It looked like everything was made of Legos. Then I started crying because they took the Jetsons off the air."
Welcome to the bizarre world of ketamine, where a person can have an out-of-body experience, meet aliens or shrink to four inches. Users call it the "K-Hole," the believable and sometimes frightening apex of ketamine's surreal high.
The New York-to-Baltimore dance scene is said to be spellbound by the drug's effects. And now the cat tranquilizer turned new-age hallucinogen has arrived in Roanoke, emerging as a sought-after drug at raves.
"I know a lot of people who have done it," said a 16-year-old girl who said she has snorted it several times. "But I don't know a lot who have it."
This month, four teen-agers and one adult were indicted on charges of breaking into a Bedford County veterinary hospital and stealing bottles of the drug.
This summer, Roanoke vice officers found a 20-year-old woman in possession of ketamine. Police say a drug charge is pending against the woman, but will not comment further on the case.
Some call it the perfect drug - producing a short-term altered reality with no apparent side effects. Others call it a risky adventure that separates mind from body, renders its users immobile and can leave them with serious mental problems.
In 1984, authorities discovered the drug could be used for evil purposes. That year, New York detectives arrested a rapist who had been paralyzing his victims by putting ketamine in their drinks.
The drug's novelty and unpredictability are the attraction for users.
Ketamine became popular in Roanoke this past summer, at all-night dance parties known as raves. Users say it's an alternative to other fad drugs such as Ecstasy and LSD.
"I like the fear in the drug," said the 22-year-old user, who first tried ketamine at a Roanoke rave. "I want to think I'm going to die, to push my body to the limit."
Currently, possessing ketamine is not a felony under state or federal law. Roanoke police and prosecutors say possessing the drug is a Class 4 misdemeanor, similar to being drunk in public. It generally is handled through a summons, rather than arrest, and is punishable by up to a $250 fine.
Selling the drug is a Class 1 misdemeanor, which carries up to a year in jail and up to a $1,200 fine.
"We are seeing it; we are making charges on it," said Vice Lt. Ron Carlisle. "We're enforcing what laws are available to us. Obviously, we need a law with more bite to it."
National surveys of drug use don't mention ketamine. Statistics kept by local and national law enforcement agencies are haphazard.
The state forensics laboratory in Roanoke County doesn't keep official count of ketamine cases. It relies on the memory of its technicians.
The lab, which works for police agencies throughout Western Virginia, first saw ketamine about a year ago. Since then, the lab has tested six or eight samples, according to Steve Sigel, director of the region's forensic sciences division.
The federal Drug Enforcement Administration has been tracking ketamine for 20 years, but is uncertain if the perceived increase in its use is a result of closer monitoring or growing popularity, said Judith Lawrence, a DEA pharmacologist in Washington.
In 1990, five people in the United States suffered medical problems from ketamine abuse, according to Lawrence. In 1994, that number rose to 33.
Two-thirds of those cases were reported by medical examiners as a result of autopsies. Ketamine was not considered the cause of death, but appeared in the decedents' toxicology reports. There have been no known deaths from abuse of the drug, according to authorities.
"What I am seeing within the last year is more instances in teens," primarily between ages 16 and 18, Lawrence said. "Prior to this, it was in the gay community."
On the street, they call it "Special K" - the powder that can send users on a 90-minute high and set them back down without a hangover.
"If alcohol and marijuana is first gear, LSD second gear, Ecstasy third gear, then K is 10th gear," said the 22-year-old user, who has dealt the drug and obtains it at raves or through a connection at a veterinary hospital.
Chemically, ketamine is in the same family as PCP, an animal tranquilizer that often goes by the street name "angel dust." During the 1970s and 1980s, abuse of PCP garnered much attention. According to drug experts, PCP and ketamine produce a similar high, but PCP lasts longer.
Researchers are unclear about the long-term effects of a drug like ketamine. The danger in abusing the drug, they say, is what people do while they are under its influence. The drug is not addictive, but it causes "profound thought disorder," said Robert Balster, director of the center for drug and alcohol studies at Virginia Commonwealth University.
"They're not making good judgments," he said of ketamine users. "It's more difficult to control than alcohol or marijuana."
Ketamine is not a new drug, nor is its abuse.
Dr. Charles McGrath, professor of veterinary anesthesia at Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech, says he remembers young people smoking marijuana cigarettes laced with ketamine 20 years ago.
The drug was approved for marketing in 1970 and has been used as an anesthetic in children and the elderly. It blocks pain without the usual side effect of an anesthetic - a decrease in respiration.
"It's an easy drug to handle for short-term procedures," Lawrence said.
Used correctly, as an anesthetic, the drug is safe, doctors say. But anesthesiologists don't use it as frequently as they once did, because of the hallucinogenic side effects and the arrival of better anesthetics, said Dr. Edmund Lesko, a Roanoke anesthesiologist who has been a physician 30 years.
In high doses, ketamine can cause seizures and schizophrenic symptoms, particularly in people with a history of mental illness.
"It's pretty dangerous, if the person is already on the edge in respect [to] being in touch with reality," said Theo Petrocci, a Roanoke-based psychologist who counsels substance abusers. "When they come out of it, what they attribute to reality and what they attribute to the drug - [those] lines begin to blur."
Take the experience of the 22-year-old drug user who says ketamine has shown him a new insight into his life. One night after snorting some in his bedroom, he believed aliens were hovering around his bed. When he awoke the next day, he says he questioned whether the experience was real.
He hooked up a 16-year-old friend with the drug before a rave one night. She described the experience as "crazy."
"You're all rubber," said the teen-ager. "You don't know who you are. ... It scared the crap out of me when I was on it. But when you come down, you want to do more."
Authorities have few legal remedies to deter use.
Nationally, the DEA is compiling information on the drug and expects to push for stricter regulations. The agency attempted to add ketamine to its list of federally regulated drugs in 1980 and again in 1986, but was unsuccessful each time.
Drug investigators believe ketamine is a threat and point to recent cases in the northeastern United States as evidence that its abuse is on the rise.
In February, three teen-agers walked into a Maryland veterinary hospital carrying Uzi-type weapons, and reportedly took 15 bottles of ketamine.
In July, police raided a New Jersey dance club and found the water spiked with ketamine.
Those selling the drug are said to make hefty profits. On Roanoke's black market, one bottle of liquid ketamine can cost $100. Once cooked up into a powder, it can generate $500 in sales, according to dealers and police.
Users say the drug's purity is certain since most take the liquid ketamine and bake it into a powder themselves. The drug's availability depends on an out-of-state shipment or a stolen cache from a veterinarian.
Some users depend on the generosity of friends.
"It was something new I hadn't tried," said the 16-year-old user. "And it was free."
Most don't know about the risks. Few care to ask.
"The only drawback," said the 22-year-old user, "is that there's not enough."
LENGTH: Long : 155 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Staff. Graphic: Chart by staff.by CNB