Animal drug danger alert
Author: Jonty Skrufff
Friday, September 8, 2006
Canadian vet Dr Nadine Koreman revealed this week that she’s experienced a doubling of cases involving dogs using drugs over the last ten years, with pets overdosing on narcotics in particular on cannabis.
''We see a lot of dogs that come in for eating drugs and a lot of times the owner may not know exactly how much it’s gotten into unless it's all gone,” said Dr. Koreman, the owner of Vancouver’s Animal Emergency Clinic told the CanWest News Service.
''It's really not funny. I can't tell people what to do with their lives, but keep it away from your dogs and cats,” she pleaded.
Though the vet also cited cases of dogs taking too much cocaine, hash brownies, and opiates, she failed to mention ketamine, the much misreported anesthetic party drug commonly referred to in the popular press as ‘horse tranquilliser’.
“The popularity of the horse tranquilliser and party drug ketamine continues to grow,” the Observer declared last week, while Guardian hack Jeremy Langmead admitted to being alarmed by it when staying at an Ibiza villa with a bunch of 40-something high flyer friends.
“I wasn't prepared for the mountains of coke, MDMA and, scariest of all, bumps of ketamine (a horse tranquilliser) that were casually scattered around the villa like bowls of pot pourri,” he admitted.
“It isn't underage drinking and drug use we should be worrying about any more, it's the epidemic of overage drug-taking.”
The Observer cited data from British drug organisation Drugscope, though ironically Drugscope point out on their website that the equine reference is wrong.
“The media have often stated that ketamine is a horse, cat, or elephant tranquilliser. The truth is that ketamine can be found in the anaesthetics department of almost every general hospital in the world. It is very definitely given to humans, in both industrialised and developing countries,” Drugscope point out.
“In most countries around the world, including the United States, the European Union and Australia, Ketalar (the brand name for K) is sometimes given as an anaesthetic to children, the infirm, the aged, persons having severe asthmatic crises, women who are giving birth or having operations, burns patients who may be given the drug repeatedly for days, and persons with chronic pain who may swallow it for years,” they add.
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