As Feds Claim Pot Has “No Medicinal Use” FDA Approving Horse Tranquilizer for Depression

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Claire Bernish 

Glaring evidence of the government’s drug war hypocrisy in the name of profit emerged Tuesday, with the announcement by Janssen Pharmaceuticals that the FDA placed ketamine on the fast track for approval to treat major depression.

Ketamine, also called escatimine — which has a reputation behind the scenes as a party drug, known as ‘Special K,’ for its sedative and sometimes hallucinatory effects — is currently most widely employed as a veterinary tranquilizer, though the Food and Drug Administration first approved human use in 1970.

With off-label uses including treatment for pain, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder, among others, as CNN noted, ketamine’s latest FDA approval will be testing as “breakthrough therapy” in treating major depressive disorder.

“In the U.S. alone, there are more than 41,000 suicides each year, many of which result from untreated or poorly treated major depression,” said Husseini K. Manji, M.D., global head of Janssen’s Neuroscience and Therapeutic Area, in a statement Tuesday. “This designation reinforces the potential of esketamine as a novel treatment for patients with major depressive disorder who are at imminent risk for suicide, a condition for which there currently is no approved treatment and which represents a major public health challenge. We are currently conducting clinical trials to further evaluate the clinical benefit of esketamine and look forward to working closely with the FDA throughout the development and review process to bring this important potential new therapy to patients in critical need.”

Scientists and doctors have much research to perform, since — though ketamine has been shown effective for treating numerous ailments — how it works isn’t entirely clear.

“We don’t exactly know how it works,” said Dr. Julie Coffman of OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital’s department of internal medicine, hospice and palliative medicine, who isn’t affiliated with Janssen.

Animal studies indicate ketamine remodels nerves by triggering “neuroplastic processes” that form new connections among brain cells, explained Dr. Dan Iosifescu, associate professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, reported CNN.

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