Is Ketamine The Next Great Hope For Addiction Treatment?
Ketamine is a Schedule III controlled substance, but the schedule number of a drug does not tell you much about it. Except for Schedule I drugs, all controlled substances are legal for medical use at least sometimes, and the law considers all controlled substances dangerous enough that it does not allow manufacturers to offer them for sale over the counter. The schedule number of a drug only sometimes matters in terms of the sentence you can get for a conviction for illegal possession of it. It doesn’t even tell you about the legal loopholes regarding off-label medical use and state and local level decriminalization. Consider that, at the federal level, cannabis is a Schedule I controlled substance, and yet, Florida allows the sale of delta-8 at gas stations, and some cities, including Tampa, have decriminalized legal cannabis. This is impressive, especially if you are old enough to remember the 1990s, when wearing a “legalize it” T-shirt with a cannabis leaf on it would cause others to write you off as a slacker with no understanding of how the world works. It is unlikely that you will be able to buy ketamine gummies from CBD stores in the foreseeable future, but the use of ketamine as a treatment for mental illnesses, including substance use disorder, is gaining support. If you are being accused of illegal possession of ketamine, contact a Tampa drug crime lawyer.
Is Ketamine the Drug You Need to Help You Quit Drugs?
The only officially accepted medical use of ketamine is for anesthesia, because it relieves pain and causes a relaxed, dissociative state, and its effects last only a short time. Depending on the dose, it can either produce a calm, euphoric feeling, or a trance state that some describe as an out-of-body experience. It is against the law to induce this trance state on your own, but some physicians induce it in patients and guide them through the experience in order to help them manage conditions such as chronic pain, clinical depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The potential of ketamine to treat substance use disorder is a topic of interest in current research, as researchers also investigate similar potential for other trance-inducing substances such as LSD and psilocybin. A group of researchers at Case Western Reserve University have published a report in the new issue of the journal Addiction, describing the results of a study they conducted. They found that ketamine holds potential as a treatment for cocaine use disorder. The currently available drug therapies for cocaine use disorder, such as stimulants and antidepressants, are not especially effective, especially when one considers their side effects.
Contact Tampa Criminal Defense Attorney Bryant Scriven
You can get felony charges for illegal possession of even a small quantity of ketamine. A criminal defense lawyer can help you if you are facing criminal charges for possessing pharmaceutical drugs that you are not authorized to possess. Contact Scriven Law in Tampa, Florida to schedule a consultation.
Sources:
dancesafe.org/ketamine/
neurosciencenews.com/addiction-ketamine-treatment-22532/
