Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Army Considers "Special K" for Injured Soldiers

The drug – known in the clubs has "Special K" – has been reducing party-goers to gurgling blobs for more than a decade. This year, the Army has been running final, phase III Food and Drug Administration trials on a quarter-dose nasal inhaler of "K," to see if it can substitute for morphine.
"With morphine, the soldier's just gorfed, he can't do anything," Col. Bob Vandre, of the Army's Medical Research and Materiel Command, told me as I stopped by his booth -- a mock MASH tent -- at the Army Science Conference. "With this, he can drive his truck, or shoot his gun."
Col. Vandre said he knew full well that Ketamine "had been snorted by people at rave parties" and that "it makes you kind of weird, sort of like acid."
However, he promised, the military's dose of "K" would not have the same effects.

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