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Joined: 02 May 2007 Posts: 23 Location: Eastern Ontario
Posted: Mon May 28, 2007 11:48 pm Post subject: Heroin mixed with Ketamine hits street in Victoria
Some idiot dealers in Victoria cut their junk with ketamine and then put it on the street without telling people what they'd done. Not surprisingly, a lot of people had bad reactions.
Quote:
New heroin mixture causing severe hallucinations, violence
A vicious new mixture of heroin that gives users severe hallucinations is circulating on local streets, warn Victoria police.
The heroin is being mixed with ketamine, an anesthetic commonly used by veterinarians, said Sgt. Grant Hamilton. Users aren't told about the mixture when they buy their drugs. When they inject what they think is clean heroin, they get hallucinations that make them anxious, excitable and violent, said Hamilton.
In the past few days, police have seen more than 20 cases of such drug overdoses, said Hamilton. Officers have had to wrestle with - and often restrain - users before they can administer medical attention, he said. Police are starting to circulate notices through the street community warning about the current quality of heroin.
"Hallucinations are something heroin users are not at all accustomed to," said Const. Conor King, Victoria police drug expert. "They react like you or I would react if we took Aspirin and all of a sudden the TV got up and started walking across the room."
About 2,000 intravenous drug users live in the capital region, according to numbers cited in a Vancouver Island Health Authority research proposal for safe injection sites earlier this year.
Those users will likely be surprised by the hallucinations, because they are not normally associated with heroin, which is a depressant.
It costs around $20 to get 0.1 grams (called a point) of heroin on the street. When injected, it provides a mellow, numbing, high that staves off the harsh affects of heroin withdrawal, said King.
But ketamine dramatically alters that high by causing hallucinations and, in some cases, memory loss.
Known on the street as Special K, Ketamine is more commonly used as a rave drug where it produces a dreamy out-of-body effect, with numbness, which is known as being in "K-land" or in the "K-hole."
"In the last week it has just seemed crazy for the drug overdoses and erratic behaviour," said Const. Brent Keleher, a downtown bike officer.
"I don't remember in past months welfare Wednesday being that noticeable. It was out of control, with the people whacked out all over the place. Even your regular users were in conditions they weren't normally in."
It's all part of the dangerous world of street drugs, where users never really know what they are buying because the drugs are mixed by dealers without any thought for safety or quality control, said King.
Street drugs such as heroin are rarely pure, he said. Dealers "cut" them with another substance similar in colour and texture to dilute the product and increase the profit margin, he said. In the case of heroin, it's usually a white powdery substance such as talcum powder or powdered milk, he said.
Ketamine also makes a good mixing substance, because it is cheaper than heroin - especially if it is stolen from a medical centre in liquid form, and then evaporated to leave the pure powder, said King. It is also possible that powder methadone is being cut into the heroin supply, said Hamilton. However, King said that would not produce hallucinations or violent behaviour.
Police say they'll watch to see if the tainted supply dwindles on the street.
"I would say it will sort itself out in a few days," said King. "But there's nothing to say that there aren't hundreds of little packages with heroin cut with ketamine out there. We will just have to watch and see what happens in the next days or weeks."
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