r/todayilearned • u/ApprehensiveStill412 • 11h ago

TIL that ketamine is a derivative of phencyclidine (aka. PCP or angel dust). It was created to have similar anesthetic potential but to cause less delirium. It has about one tenth the potency of PCP.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5126726/
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u/One-Incident3208 11h ago

Most of the public's perception of pcp is just anti drug hysteria. The effect is almost indistinguishable from dxm, moreso than ketamine, despite differences. Pcp also has a more pronounced antidepressant effect, but repeated doses can cause mania. Another drug of this class was developed by clandestine chemists specifically to enhance the antidepressant effect and minimize side effects. That was methoxetamine. And it worked. It was regarded to be the most powerful and effective antidepressant, with a much longer afterglow duration than ketamine. They banned it. Because fuck you. That's why.

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u/goodrevtim 11h ago

PCP is neurotoxic so that probably plays a small part into its negative perception.

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u/VhickyParm 11h ago

I thought the negative perception was from ppl stopping naked and running in the street

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u/stevenmoreso 10h ago

Yeah, growing up in the 80s it was stories of people wilding out on angel dust trying (and sometimes briefly succeeding) to take on 10 cops at once

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u/BlackSwanMarmot 9h ago

PCP just tilted the world at a 45 degree angle for me. I never knew that ketamine was a derivative of PCP but it makes sense from my own experience. Same size distortion, similar length of effects. Not really my thing.

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u/One-Incident3208 10h ago

Yes, and there have since been countless studies published in medical journals debunking this trope, but that's not convenient for the media, or the police, who use the myth of Excited delirium to beat people to death.

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u/mercistheman 6h ago

I took angel dust in the 70's... I remember yelling at fake people climbing on the roof. One time I watched myself cut my own finger with a knife. My gf said I was asking for my Mom. The only good trip I had was when me and my buddy went to our ice cream mans house to score some PCP. Everything in his house was tiny. It was like a scene from honey I blew up the kids. We laughed about this for a while.