Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic similar to PCP but produces less confusion, irrationality, and violence. Developed in the 1960s, ketamine is used as a surgical anesthetic for children who are typically able to avoid unpleasant reactions, for battlefield injuries in which rapid onset is critical, and for repeated procedures such as chemotherapy and treatment of burns. It is also used in veterinary medicine, primarily to immobilize cats or monkeys. Its use in human surgery has declined with introduction of safer, more-effective products.

The synthesis of ketamine is complicated, and at this time diversion of the legitimate product—particularly from burglary of veterinary facilities—is the only known source on the street. Street users often refer to the drug as “K” or “special K,” and it is sold in powder, capsule, tablet, solution, and some injectable forms. Ketamine powder can be snorted like cocaine, mixed into drinks, or smoked.
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Taken episodically and in low doses, methamphetamine can enhance sexual drive and performance; used habitually at high dosage, it can impair sexual functioning. In some abusers it provides a substitute for sex. Grinspoon and Hedblom (1975: 103) state that although some people experience improved sexual performance, which might be an important reason for its popularity, “amphetamines are particularly dangerous in the hands of people whose sexuality is abnormal or overtly perverse” because the drugs appear to obliterate conventional restraints.

One of the ways in which methamphetamine (MA) use can be distinguished from other drug and alcohol addictions, notes T. Hank Robinson, is the out-of-control sexual activity which appears to be a key element in its use. Users report a loss of control over their sexual expression, describing sex as “compulsive” and “obsessive.” “The disinhibitory affects of MA (and Ice in particular) have been strongly associated with sexual behaviors that put men at high risk of sexually transmitted and blood-borne disease, including HIV infection.”
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Whilst not currently a legal requirement, running balances for controlled drugs are considered to be best practice. Running balances are relatively easy to control if checked regularly.

Solid dosage forms and individual dosing units such as ampoules and powder sachets are relatively easy to control whilst it is more difficult to keep an accurate balance of liquids due to many manufacturers adding an overage to their bottles. As a result there appears to be more stock left than is indicated in the running balance of the register.
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The requirements for writing prescriptions differ depending on the schedule of the controlled drug. The most stringent requirements relate to those controlled drugs contained in schedule 2, although even these have been modified by recent amendments to the regulations.

Since November 2005 prescriptions for all scheduled controlled drugs can be either computer-generated or handwritten, with only the prescriber’s signature having to be in his or her own handwriting. Before this date only those prescriptions for schedules 4 and 5 controlled drugs, or for temazepam, could be typed rather than handwritten.
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