Ketamine has been around for years but was largely neglected by the medical profession until recently.
When used for chronic pain, ketamine has also been reported to cause dizziness, lightheadedness and nausea.
Another new drug, methoxetamine, a ketamine-like substance, was only banned in April, provisionally for 12 months.
Police said the number of people being arrested for ketamine and mephedrone had risen.
BBC: Rising cases of ketamine users suffering bladder damage
Ketamine is a drug of abuse, but like other hallucinogenics it is not as powerfully addictive as opiates.
But ketamine is not widely used and has not always found to be helpful for all types of pain.
But ketamine has side effects including hallucinations and other "dissociative" feelings during and for a bit after an intravenous infusion.
Some psychiatrists believe ketamine or drugs like it will be helpful in emergency rooms with patients who are actively suicidal.
Alibaba's offers include an Indian company selling Methadone and a Chinese supplier of a raw ingredient used in Ketamine.
Ketamine is also used to treat acute pain after significant tissue trauma, either as the result of surgery or an accident.
Certainly there are many reports of people with various types of chronic pain getting relief from one or more infusions of ketamine.
In recent years, ketamine - developed as an animal and human anaesthetic - has become a recreational drug among the post-rave generation.
Police said 19 people had been arrested for possessing ketamine this year.
BBC: Rising cases of ketamine users suffering bladder damage
On March 6th Britain's Home Office announced a possible ban on methoxetamine, a new drug based on ketamine, which is not yet classified.
Ketamine and the new compounds from AstraZeneca and Naurex all act on the brain's N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors, which are involved in learning and memory.
Pierre Blier, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Ottawa in Canada has given ketamine to about 25 patients in the last 18 months.
So my best answer for your first question is that yes, ketamine might help your pain, depending on what type of pain problem you've got.
In 2010, 33 people were arrested for possessing ketamine, which increased to 41 in 2011 and so far this year there have been 19 arrests.
BBC: Rising cases of ketamine users suffering bladder damage
AstraZeneca and Naurex say their new compounds deliver the rapid benefits of ketamine without the disturbing side effects because they act differently on the NMDA receptor.
Indeed, Ketamine is sometimes abused as a street drug called "special K." There is also concern that repeated doses of ketamine could be harmful to the brain.
There has been a rise in the number of people needing treatment for Ketamine Bladder Syndrome, with a new case in Leeds every three to four months.
BBC: Rising cases of ketamine users suffering bladder damage
Ketamine does not cross-react with opiates, however, so you wouldn't be able to use it to withdraw safely from methadone, even if you found it useful for pain control.
The test card, marketed by Tetra Scene of Crime in Billericay, contains a chemical which reacts to Ketamine and GHB, which police say are the most commonly used drugs.
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Used for decades as cheap alternatives to heroin and methadone, their resurgence now (like the growth of heavy ketamine use) may reflect a shortage of good-quality heroin from late 2010.
According to research by Fiona Measham, a criminologist at the University of Lancaster who researches British drinking and drug-taking habits, drugs like ketamine and mephedrone are increasingly popular cocaine substitutes.
Compared with drugs like ketamine and zolpidem, high lorcaserin doses were associated with more prominent negative effects and only the 60 mg dose was deemed slightly similar to LSD or ecstasy.
Well, they certainly can afford lots of drugs since they get tax-free salaries (just like their counterparts at other international bureaucracies), but these numbers are the not the result of some ketamine-fueled binge.
Richard Shelton, a professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral neurobiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham has been conducting a small study and has used ketamine this way in 16 people.
Police have warned people not to take mexxy, sold as an alternative to ketamine, after the bodies of a 59-year-old woman and a 32-year-old man were found in Leicester and Melton Mowbray on two separate days in February.
BBC: "Legal highs" mexxy and black mamba banned by government
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