- Man defends that he killed his mother while suffering from psychosis induced by ketamine
- Ketamine helped rescue boys trapped in a cliff in Thailand
- Used at parties as a "coercive drug"
Man defends that he killed his mother while suffering from psychosis induced by ketamine
News from the madhouse - a young man, just 21 years old, was so intoxicated by drugs that he even killed his own mother, believing her to be a demon. The court, describing the crime as unintentional (with "getting high" being a mitigating factor), handed down a sentence of just over seven years in prison.
Finn Henry, a boxer who was heavily intoxicated on the drug ketamine, committed the offense on 1 May 2023 when, according to his testimony, he attacked his own mother at their home in Madeley, Staffordshire, believing her to be a "devil or demon." The 54-year-old woman's injuries were so severe that medics were initially unable to determine her gender[1].
The woman who suffered extremely serious injuries at the hands of her son died in hospital two days later, and the drug-psychotic son, although he denied killing his mother, admitted manslaughter, for which he was sentenced to a maximum of ten years imprisonment at Northampton Crown Court on Monday.
The young man had been addicted to ketamine for five years and regularly used other drugs, despite pleas from family and friends to stop, the court found.
Ketamine is widely used in the health system as an anesthetic, sedative, and painkiller and is often used for animals. It is a synthetic class B drug with hallucinogenic effects[2].
Ketamine helped rescue boys trapped in a cliff in Thailand
In 2018, the world watched breathlessly as a local children's football team was rescued from a two-week rescue operation trapped by floods in Thailand's Tham Luang cave in Chiang Rai province.
It turns out that this synthetic narcotic substance contributed to the happy ending of the rescue operation for the team of twelve boys and their coach.
Given that the boys were severely weakened and would not have been able to swim out of the cave with the divers, the decision was taken to inject them with ketamine. The experiment was extremely risky because if the boys had been injected with too much ketamine, their respiratory system could have stopped, while if they had been injected with too little, they could have woken up during the swim and drowned.
The children remained unconscious for between one and two hours on ketamine.
Used at parties as a "coercive drug"
Because of its properties, such as color and odourlessness, ketamine is often used on dates or parties to take physical advantage of people against their will.
Ketamine is also easy to overdose on, as it is more potent than speed drugs and cocaine. The substance is usually injected or snorted but can also be smoked or taken in tablet form, which gives a slightly weaker effect than injecting the substance[3].
So, what does a person feel after taking a dose of ketamine? The effect is often described as 'going out of one's body', feeling as if the body is floating. Some who have experienced clinical death even describe this feeling as very similar. Normally, as soon as ketamine is taken - 2-5 minutes after taking the dose - there is a sudden high that lasts for about an hour.
However, like all narcotic drugs, ketamine can cause very strong side reactions. An overdose of ketamine can lead to a 'K-hole', which is described as intense and unpleasant visual and auditory hallucinations accompanied by a disconnection from reality.
