It's amazing how such a powerful drug can be a class C?

[readyforthefloor]

Ketamine is such a powerful drug and it's amazing how it's only a class C in the UK when so many other drugs are class A.

Why is this? Swim does not understand the class system!

[aerozeppelin123]

The classification of drugs really doesn't mean anything when it comes to how harmful or dangerous they are. Some exceptionally safe drugs e.g. magic mushrooms, MDMA are class A whereas some very harmful ones are lower or not even classified at all (alcohol/tobacco).

[Metomni]

Could be due to the fact that it is still used medicinally in animals, and even in humans to some degree.

[readyforthefloor]

Yeah, that's what's so ridiculous. And as if classifications will stop people doing drugs anyway.

[enquirewithin]

Correct. Ketamine was first used as, and designed as, a general anaesthetic. It's widespread recreational use is quite recent. Previously it was only used by a handful of people, usually people connected with medicine in some way (John Lily, Marcia Moore) and injected. Later on it became popular snorted in small amounts as a club drug and became illegal in many countries.

[Samadhi]

this is a sad story..

http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=6312
can't really tell how true erowid is but this is a sad story about ketamine.

[Sippin40oz]

Wasnt there an independant report recently in the uk saying how the class system shold be readjusted to mean class A = most dangerous etc? I think Gordon Stalin Brown just ignored as he obviously knows better then drugs experts!

Reading through that story it did seem quite true... Its well sad! I knew a Ketamine addict a while back. He was not quite as bad as that guy but still wasnt a pretty sight!

[Nature Boy]

Originally Posted by Sippin40oz

Wasnt there an independant report recently in the uk saying how the class system shold be readjusted to mean class A = most dangerous etc? I think Gordon Stalin Brown just ignored as he obviously knows better then drugs experts!

Yup, that's pretty-much exactly what happened. That's what happens when you put old-fashioned Presbyterian fears over modern science and logic. His policy-making wouldn't seem out of place in the Puritan colonies.