RESEARCH; SUBJECTS GIVEN `DATE RAPE' DRUG

Volunteers weren't told the hallucinogen they were taking was meant
to mimic schizophrenia

BOSTON (AP) - Researchers trying to find ways to treat schizophrenia
gave more than 100 healthy people a powerful hallucinogen without
fully informing them that the drug could potentially produce psychotic
episodes, The Boston Globe reported today.

The studies involved the drug ketamine, also known as "Special K" and
considered a "date-rape" drug because of the stupor-like condition it
can cause.

The Globe said the studies, which began in 1994, involved both
mentally ill and healthy people, and participants often were not told
they were being given ketamine to induce conditions similar to
schizophrenia.

Ketamine is available by prescription only, and was approved by the
Food and Drug Administration as an anesthetic. Its primary use is as
an animal tranquilizer.

Healthy people given the drug reported feelings of floating, having a
radio in the ear, tearfulness and sad moods and feelings of "life and
death at the same time," the Globe said.

The possibility of long-term harm from drug-induced psychosis is less
likely in healthy people, but there is a possibility of flashbacks
months later, according to the report.

Disclosure is important because there is the possibility of "hooking
someone" on the drug, said Arthur Caplan, a University of Pennsylvania
bioethicist.

Experiments were done primarily at the National Institute of Mental
Health at Bethesda, Md., or facilities financed by the institute, such
as medical schools at Yale University and New York University.

An NIMH review board approved the studies.

"This is a medicine which is given under close scrutiny for a
short-term basis. There is no repeat, long-term exposure," said Dr.
Trey Sunderland, chairman of the review board. As a result, he said,
ketamine's street use is "not an issue in these studies."

He said consent forms indicate "you might get an altered mood,
hallucinations. ... The main side effects of the medication are listed
in black and white."

Dr. John Krystal, a Yale psychiatry professor, said he began using
ketamine because old literature showed it might model symptoms and
problems of schizophrenia and give new insights into treatment.

He said subjects in his early studies were not told that ketamine was
used as a street drug. He said he did not have recent consent forms
to show what participants are told now. But he said, "People who
participate are made aware that it has effects on mood that may make
some people want to use it."