I was severely depressed and suicidal a few years ago and getting deep into the seedy underbelly of drugs and counterculture, and came across Ketamine at a late night party.
Fuck.
I had recently landed an amazing gig doing easy work for good money. Coming off a six month period where I was unemployed and my savings dwindled to the point where I was stealing groceries and applied for one of those mail-in credit cards to pay my rent, I was rich (relatively) and ketamine made my life do a complete 180. I think the first time I did a line I said "this drug changed my fucking life" and it was true. I would lie in bed and drink myself unconscious every goddamn night for those six months, smoked packs of cigs, and god, it was deplorable. But ketamine, turned everything awesome. I felt good. Life was great. I had hope for my future and, to quote the Simpsons, everything was coming up Millhouse. I got my first girlfriend, partied hard and for a while forgot that I used to wake up wishing i'd died in my fucking sleep.
Must have racked up about ten grand in debt during that time buying ketamine alone, but i didn't care, it was fucking amazing. My job pushed me to do amazing work, and within that year I was promoted twice, assuming new responsibilities and kicking their asses, because the harder I worked, the more K I could put up my nose. But my nose started bleeding and cracking and i developed pneumonia, so I started looking at alternative methods. I began IMing (intra-muscular injections), which not only boosted the efficiency of the drug, boosted its potency as well. At this point I was shooting grams of the stuff every weekend, and doing bumps after work as reward for my daily accomplishments. But I sat back one night, and realized that this drug, miraculous as were its effects on my life, it was destroying me financially. My social circle was a ragtag collection of drug users and dealers, party girls and DJs, and I decided that with a fledgling career in tech and opportunities ahead of me, this addiction was a huge weight on my shoulders. So I quit. I moved, I deleted my facebook. Tore off the Band-aid and got out.
I kept my dealer's number though, just in case.
Made it a month, cold turkey. It was impossible, but I struggled through it, paychecks went to Visa bills, not drug dealers, and I established myself in my new apartment and got through four weeks that way. But I reached a point where I NEEDED it. Anyone who has done drugs, coffee, alcohol, whatever, knows that if you just stop, eventually you reach a tipping point. So I called him up. I drove to his place and grabbed two grams, which he even commented was a relatively small purchase relative to the half-ounces I used to rock. And underestimating my own tolerances, I railed the entire bag right there on his couch, off the back of a nickelback CD case. That's the last thing I remember before waking up in an ambulance. And that's when I quit for good.
This was six months ago, I just got out of court, and I have never been more depressed in my life, but i'm clean and have been for seven months now.
All of this to say, so many drugs that are used recreationally have immense benefits that, with careful study (as shown here) could have lasting impacts on medicine and public health. But by keeping them illegal and in the hands of the kinds of people who sold it to a suicidal kid at a party, this research will never come to fruition. I'm no crackpot who believes drugs should be free game and that anyone and their mom can go to Drugs R Us and pick up an ounce of blow OTC, but so many psychoactive substances are abused because of their effects. And the dosages involved are employed to maximize the "event", and not the "impact". It's been repeatedly shown that in small doses, many scheduled substances are medically beneficial, despite the fact that if you ramp it up they become psychoactive. LSD and other psychedelics come to mind, as well as the entire medical marijuana industry. Personally, I believe that regulated ketamine as an antidepressant, given my personal experiences with the drug, is a fantastic idea, so long as it isn't allowed to escalate to the point of crashing into four cars in an intersection.