The mind-altering anaesthetic ketamine is being sold online and posted to patients to treat symptoms of depression as part of a booming new industry that has troubled psychiatrists who warn of possible side effects from higher doses.
Ketamine has been used in hospitals as an anaesthetic since the Seventies, but in recent years a series of studies have suggested that it may be effective in treating mood disorders.
Ketamine treatment centres have opened. The pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson has developed a patented variant of the drug, esketamine, delivered via a nasal spray, that has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
Another nasal spray, developed by a New York company called Seelos Therapeutics for potential use with suicidal patients in emergency departments, will
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