An Indian TV station has done a bit of investigative journalism following a big ketamine drug bust, and found that pharmacists will dispense ketamine over the counter. For those of you who don’t know, in addition to ketamine being used as a recreational drug, it is also one of the most common “date rape drugs.” And no, it’s not supposed to be sold without a prescription.
Now, in all fairness, I know nothing about how reputable this news source’s stories generally are. The story strikes me as being written in the same kind of over-sensationalized style that “consumer affairs” shows have, and since those kinds of stories are often exaggerated I always take them with a grain of salt. Also, the station only mentions having visited one pharmacy. Certainly, it is significant if the first pharmacy they visited sold the drug over the counter, but the logical thing to do would go to other pharmacies and make sure that it wasn’t a fluke (and of course report any that do sell the drug).
I wasn’t able to find any information on the prevalence of rapes in India that are facilitated by the so-called “date rape drugs,” though a lot of articles on the subject being published within the past couple of years suggests that it may be on the rise, and more than one referred to the drugs as being “popular” in this context. Also, Mumbai is the most populous city in the world. This means a couple of things: that if these drugs are being used to facilitate rape, there are a lot of women in danger, and a problem that could be considered statistically “small” in Mumbai could potentially be considered a major issue by more general standards. Without claiming a pandemic when there’s no evidence of one, all of this certainly is enough to freak me out big time.
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