Ket Avenue

Ket Avenue is the slang term used in drug culture to describe the altered state of mind of an individual or group of individuals while under the influence of ketamine.

Description

The avenue is used as a metaphor for taking ketamine. Phrases such as "I may go for a brisk walk down the avenue" or “I think he has just bought a mansion on the avenue” are used in order to show what the individual is planning without arousing the suspicion of non-drug users, much like cockney rhyming slang. When a person or group of people are described as "going down Ket Avenue" the person is often suffering the effects of the drug. These effects include changes in the perception of distances and durations as well as a slowing of the visual system's ability to update what the user is seeing, which in turn leads to extremely limited movement for the individual.

In some cases users are able to see their surroundings in two sharp images, as if the brain is unable to merge the images each eye is sending. Auditory hallucinations are not uncommon with speech becoming incomprehensible to others, and sometimes to the user of the drug themselves. Visual hallucinations similar to PCP or LSD are also common however its hallucinatory effects are short-acting, lasting an hour or less in most cases. The anaesthetic effect of the drug can also lead to numbness in the extremities, most commonly the fingers, toes and tongue. Ketamine is usually insufflated (snorted) and to “arrive at Ket Avenue” the individual typically has small lines or “bumps”. These bumps are approximately 1/20th of a gram of ketamine and take 5-10 minutes before the individual feels the effects.

Ket Avenue however is clearly defined as an experience in which the individual is still aware of other people and reality to a certain extent, and is not to be confused with a “k-hole”. Approximately 1/5th of a gram (200 milligrams) of ketamine is sufficient to send a user into a k-hole, a state of wildly dissociated experience in which other worlds or dimensions that are difficult to describe with language are said to be perceived, all the while being completely unaware of their individual identities or the outside world. Users may feel as though their perceptions are located so deep inside the mind that the real world seems distant (hence the use of a "hole" to describe the experience). When a user is on Ket Avenue, time can often become distorted resulting in what seems like a very large period of time only actually being several minutes. This can mean that users are unaware that they have had several lines in a short period of time, thus resulting in an unexpected k-hole. In an attempt to avoid arousing suspicion, users may describe the experience with phrases such as "I was going for a walk/jog down the avenue, but then I tripped and fell down a hole".

ee also

*Psychedelic experience

References