By Luke Knipe
Arizona Daily Wildcat
February 20, 1998

Know your drugs

To the Editor

In Monday's Police Beat, the top story was about a female student's complaint of her roommate's drug use. The article stated that the drug the student's roommate had allegedly been using was "Special K," which was said to be "slang for Ketamine, a cat tranquilizer."

"Special K" is a term that abounds in certain regions of drug culture, but more often than not, it does not refer to Ketamine. It is more often used to describe cocktails (usually in the form of gel-caps) consisting of MDMA or MDA (often called "ecstasy") and LSD. The techno-rave scene, where the term "Special K" is often used, is somewhat of a breeding ground for ambiguous drug terminology, and is thus a common source of misunderstandings for many people. Ketamine, like PCP, is an unlikely drug on a college campus, and was probably not what the student meant by "Special K."

Luke Knipe
Biochemistry Freshman