Ketamine soars as pain, depression treatment — experts fear 'wild west' boom
As U.S. doctors scale back their use of opioid painkillers, a new option for hard-to-treat pain is taking root: ketamine, the decades-old surgical drug that is now a trendy psychedelic therapy. With limited research on its effectiveness against pain, some experts worry the U.S. may be repeating mistakes that gave rise to the opioid crisis: overprescribing a questionable drug that carries significant safety and abuse risks.