COUNSELOR: KETAMINE A STUDENT PARTY DRUG

CHAPEL HILL -- Ketamine, an animal tranquilizer stolen recently from a
Carrboro animal hospital, is being used as a "party drug" among high school
and college students here, a UNC health official said.

Obtaining ketamine was the motive of three break-ins at the Animal Hospital
in Carrboro. Earlier this week, police charged two men with those
break-ins. But investigators haven't confirmed what the men intended to do
with the drug, Carrboro Police Lt. Jim Phillips said Wednesday.

"Certainly, I hear about it. ... I have met with students who have used
ketamine," said Dee Dee Laurilliard, a substance abuse counselor at UNC's
Center for Healthy Student Behaviors.

The number of UNC students who use the drug cannot be determined, partly
because the university's drug survey does not specifically ask about the
drug but includes it in a group of drugs, Laurilliard said.

Every two years, the Center for Healthy Student Behaviors randomly
distributes the "Core Alcohol and Other Drug Surveys" to 1,500 students,
she said.

Laurilliard said she includes information about ketamine in the substance
abuse lectures she gives to UNC students and to community groups.

At one of those community talks, a local high school student told how when
she took the drug at a dance, everyone appeared to her as if they had been
beheaded, Laurilliard said.

"Ketamine hydrochloride, or 'Special K' is a powerful hallucinogen that can
result in profound physical and mental problems, including delirium,
amnesia, impaired motor function and potentially fatal respiratory
problems," according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. It was
designated a controlled substance in 1999.

"One of the appeals to using the drug is the near-death experience,"
Laurilliard said.

The drug blocks brain receptors and causes visions and dreams as well as
lower oxygen and blood sugar levels and slower breathing, Laurilliard said.
But it can also cause death, usually due to respiratory depression,
Laurilliard said.

Anyone who takes the drug should seek help, Laurilliard said. And people
who become unconscious after taking it should be rushed by ambulance to an
emergency room, Laurilliard said.

"You just have to get somebody there as fast as possible," Laurilliard
said. The drug can also cause permanent brain damage, she said.

"Ketamine is considered to be one of the 'date rape' drugs, substances that
can be slipped into a person's drink to render him or her unconscious,"
according to the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention of the Substance
Abuse and Mental Health Administration.

While Phillips acknowledged the drug's potential as a date rape drug, he
said he did not know of any such cases in Carrboro or the area.

Laurilliard said another drug, GHB (gamma hydroxy butyrate) is suspected of
having been used locally as a date rape drug.

A month ago, police charged a UNC freshman with felony possession of liquid
gamma-butyrolactone (GBL), which when taken orally, is converted in the
body to GHB.

At UNC, there have been no confirmed cases of rape associated with GBL or
GHB, but female students have occasionally reported unexplained memory loss
and suspected that someone had slipped them a drug in food or drink, UNC
officials have said.