Most people think Ketamine is a horse tranquilizer and that its main use is abuse. Most people are wrong. In the right hands, Ketamine is already saving tens of millions of lives a year, and has been for over 50 years.

It would be saving millions more if you would only sign this petition.

The story of Ketamine is following the path of an earlier medication, Lithium, for all of the same reasons. In 1871 researchers discovered that Lithium had therapeutic benefits for the mentally ill. In 1970 the FDA allowed the use of Lithium for the treatment of mania. Among other stories in those 99 years, one mother and wife was hospitalized for much of the 1920's through 1950's for want of a single daily dose of Lithium. In 2000, under poorly controlled treatment protocols, a child lost 90% of his kidney function to Lithium toxicity. That woman was my grandmother, the child is my son. Our century's Lithium is Ketamine, a medication that has a half-century of stellar outcomes, but is still derided for its dangerous side effects when used without direct medical supervision.

The National Institute for Mental Health has conducted research into Ketamine since 2000 while cherry picking the data they share with the public. The researchers are possibly conflicted by their compensation by drug companies for patented alternatives to the generic Ketamine. We believe the research already done will show that Ketamine is a safe, effective and inexpensive treatment for many emotional illnesses like depression and PTSD. Ketamine is already used for pain applications like CRPS but still does not get general approval by third-party payers. Independent clinics have treated over 1,000 patients successfully with ketamine for emotional illnesses, and hundreds more for CRPS, but without government sanction the treatment remains prohibitively expensive and not covered by third party payers.

Ketamine is not a horse tranquilizer, or any kind of tranquilizer. Ketamine is an operating room anesthetic that was developed in the 1960's and used in Vietnam on the battlefield because it was safe enough to be administered by a medic. It has been used in tens of millions of medical procedures a year for the last 50 years with a great safety record and is even a core medicine on the World Health Organization’s “List of Essential Medicines”. (There is a good chance if you've had an operation in the last 50 years, you were given Ketamine and never knew it.)

It is a drug of abuse at high dosages, but very safe and effective when given under direct medical supervision. How safe and how high? The lethal dose of Ketamine is estimated to be 450 times the typical dose given for depression. Water is lethal at a dozen 16 ounce glasses of water in one sitting. Yes, in many ways Ketamine is as safe as water, when handled properly.

Recent research suggests that most or all mental illness is the result of physical degradation of neurons caused by genetic vulnerability and life stresses. Ketamine acts to grow back those nerves in as little as an hour. Scientists at Yale University have called Ketamine the greatest discovery in the science of mental illness in the last 50 years. Given the results Ketamine has already shown for physical ailments like CRPS and Fibromyalgia, and the tens of millions of medical procedures a year using Ketamine, it may just become known as the greatest discovery in medicine since Penicillin.

Just because there hasn't been a billion dollar advertising campaign does not mean there is not a revolution going on. Drug companies have been trying and failing for a decade to produce a patented alternative to ketamine. The government itself tried to re-patent Ketamine for depression in 2007. Just like drug companies failed to produce a patented alternative to Lithium after 99 years of trying, they have failed to develop a patented alternative to Ketamine after 50 years of trying.

Do you really want to wait another 49 years before they give up and people get access to an inferior and poorly conceived and underfunded treatment protocol, all for want of a little memory and a little foresight? Can't we do better than that?

I hope each of you finds the inner peace I have found with Ketamine treatment. That said, I am still someone who is SMIandSFM - that would be seriously mentally ill and seriously mad - not the best combination - but with complete inner peace, I am very SMIandSFM at the 110 or more lives lost to suicide in America alone each day, 20 who are Veterans, and the uncounted other lives lost to other illnesses, and the tens of millions of people suffering great physical and/or emotional harm, all from illnesses that Ketamine is already being used successfully to treat, at least for patients who can afford it - which in some cases has approached $5,000 per hour of infusion, but even the lowest per hour rate is still $300.

If you're a CRPS patient, count on at least 40 hours of infusions the first year to stabilize. For a depression patient, 10 to 20 hours the first year. That is a lot of money for the average family, much harder for a family with someone suffering a major illness. That's what insurance is supposed to be for.

It is time the public had access to information about this important medication. As the video says, it will change people's lives.

- Gerald Gaines

Patient Advocate