What Ketamine Does to the Human Brain
Health Excessive use of the drug can make anyone feel like they rule the world. March 05, 2025 Last month, during Elon Musk’s appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference, as he hoisted a chain saw in the air, stumbled over some of his words, and questioned whether there was really gold stored in Fort Knox, people on his social-media platform, X, started posting about ketamine. Musk has said he uses ketamine regularly, so for the past couple of years, public speculation has
Read in The Atlantic: https://apple.news/AgPLWEpKIQMq_xaoX6DmByw
Shared from Apple News
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the functional group referred to as ketimine, see Imine.
Ketamine
Legal status
Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic used medically for induction and maintenance of anesthesia. It is also used as a treatment for depression and in pain management.[19] Ketamine is an NMDA receptor antagonist which accounts for most of its psychoactive effects.[20]
At anesthetic doses, ketamine induces a state of dissociative anesthesia, a trance-like state providing pain relief, sedation, and amnesia.[21] Its distinguishing features as an anesthestic are preserved breathing and airway reflexes, stimulated heart function with increased blood pressure, and moderate bronchodilation.[21] At lower, sub-anesthetic doses, it is a promising agent for treatment of pain and treatment-resistant depression.[22] As with many antidepressants, the results of a single administration wane with time.[23]
Ketamine is used as a recreational drug for its hallucinogenic and dissociative effects.[24] When used recreationally, it is found both in crystalline powder and liquid form, and is often referred to by users as "Special K" or simply "K". The long-term effects of repeated use are largely unknown and are an area of active investigation.[25][26][27] Liver and urinary toxicity have been reported among regular users of high doses of ketamine for recreational purposes.[28]
Ketamine was first synthesized in 1962, derived from phencyclidine in pursuit of a safer anesthetic with fewer hallucinogenic effects.[29][30] It was approved for use in the United States in 1970.[19] It has been regularly used in veterinary medicine and was extensively used for surgical anesthesia in the Vietnam War.[31] It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines.[32] It is available as a generic medication.[33]
MORAL LEADERSHIP
By Allen M.
I see where Michael Flynn thinks LSS (Lutheran Social Service) is a money laundering operation. President Trump sues J. Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register; says they caused his campaign to spend more money in Iowa than he planned. Elon Musk feeds people and programs into a woodchipper. The Administration advocates cuts to multiple agencies and plans negotiations with Russia and somehow initially forgets mentioning Ukraine
We are where we are because it is becoming clear we are abandoning our moral leadership.
With it, great things are possible, without it, not so much.
We earned that moral leadership through the years by being a good friend, by standing by others even when they didn't pay their fair share for defense. We earned with USAID by thinking of others, the most downtrodden, first.
We earned it over many years by medical and scientific advances made possible by NIH and NSF.
We earned it by our efforts in WWII, even though if we had entered sooner more lives could have been saved.
We earned it by doing our best to hold the WWII war criminals responsible.
We earned after WWII by being clear eyed about the Soviet Union. American historian Timothy Snyder has stated that Stalin deliberately killed about 6 million of his citizens.
We earned it and then some with the Marshall Plan. I can't think of anything that makes me prouder to be a U.S. citizen than that.
Moral leadership is hard. It requires courage and sacrifice.
Pat Nabong
/
Chicago Sun Times
Since 2005, Illinois has lost 36% of its newspapers.
As newspapers continue to close across the country, Illinois has been particularly hard hit. The state has lost 86% of its journalists since 2005 — the highest percentage decline in the nation, according to the Medill State of Local News report released in October. Nationally, there was a 60% drop in newspaper journalist positions during that same period.
Illinois’ disproportionately larger number of newspaper job losses is because many of its news organizations are owned by corporate chains, Tim Franklin, director of the Medill Local News Initiative at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, said at a presentation last month at the Field Foundation. Several of those corporations are all, or in part, controlled by private equity or hedge funds.
For rest of the story go to: Illinois is hard hit by newspaper closures, study finds | STLPR
Pat Nabong
/
Chicago Sun Times
Since 2005, Illinois has lost 36% of its newspapers.
As newspapers continue to close across the country, Illinois has been particularly hard hit. The state has lost 86% of its journalists since 2005 — the highest percentage decline in the nation, according to the Medill State of Local News report released in October. Nationally, there was a 60% drop in newspaper journalist positions during that same period.
Illinois’ disproportionately larger number of newspaper job losses is because many of its news organizations are owned by corporate chains, Tim Franklin, director of the Medill Local News Initiative at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, said at a presentation last month at the Field Foundation. Several of those corporations are all, or in part, controlled by private equity or hedge funds.
/
Northern Public Radio | By Peter Medlin
Published February 4, 2025 at 2:21 PM CST
Listen • 0:54
Spencer Tritt
DeKalb High School
President Trump says he wants Congress to close the Department of Education.
Illinois school districts count on federal funds for 12% of their revenue. The majority of school revenue comes from local taxes and a smaller chunk comes from the state.
And that 12% is actually higher than usual due to pandemic relief funding over the past few years. Pre-COVID, it made up around 7 or 8% of school revenues.
But that percentage can vary a lot, depending on the district. The federal government’s Title I program sends out billions of dollars a year to low-income schools across the country.
Rockford Public Schools, for example, receives 22% of their revenue from the federal government, while a wealthier district like Oak Park-River Forest gets just 3% from the feds.
But the big question is, if the U.S. Department of Education gets axed, does all of this federal money disappear? Not necessarily. Certain programs can be cut, but the Title I program existed before the Department of Education and it would take a separate congressional act to end it.
Would that be a priority for Trump? Well, the conservative policy playbook Project 2025, co-authored by current and former Trump staffers, calls for Title 1 to be wound down and ended.
Federal funding doesn't just come to school districts through Title I either. Schools receive federal grants to help fund lots of initiatives including mental health services and career & technical education programming.
Even if federal funds make up a relatively small percentage of school district revenue, losing it would mean steep cuts at some of the poorest school districts.
