LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A drug used as a tranquilizer is being used to help people with their mental health. A Las Vegas clinic that specializes in this special type of therapy is showing that what many people may think of as a party drug is now becoming an essential way to treat mental health concerns.
“For me personally, Ketamine has saved my life,” Sariah Fisher, patient and co-owner of Las Vegas Ketamine said. “My husband and I together wanted to bring this type of healing to the masses.”
Sariah suffers from a variety of mental health disorders and said she now has her life back thanks to the drug. Something fellow patient, Kyle, who has been going to the clinic for a month now, can agree with.
“I suffer from PTSD, severe anxiety and depression from my time in the military,” Kyle shared. “I heard about Ketamine therapy through numerous outlets and when I first heard about it, I was like, I’m not taking something that is a rave drug to get myself better, but then I started to really take a look at it.”
This veteran-owned business opened a year and a half ago and is known as a Ketamine IV Infusion Clinic. Co-owner, Adam Fisher shared with 8 News Now how much of a need there is to have one here in the valley.
“There wasn’t much accessibility here, in fact we had been driving to St. George for treatments and that just got to be tiresome so at some point we thought there needs to be more opportunities for something like this in Las Vegas,” he shared.
Ketamine is a controlled substance and can only legally be administered through a doctor and recently there has been a boom of these clinics opening up across the country.
Dr. Bennett, the Anesthesiologist at Las Vegas Ketamine believes that there are more benefits involved in injecting it intravenously.
“I know exactly what is getting into their system when it’s administered, and I can adjust and tailor it to every patient as we are doing 100 infusions at our clinic a month,” he said.
With other methods like ketamine nasal spray or oral lozenges, it can be difficult to know how much is actually getting administered into a person’s system.
Owners also shared with 8 News Now that because of the boom, they are now looking to expand in the near future.
Infusions last about 40 minutes, but the doses vary from person to person. Pricing also varies, but Las Vegas Ketamine is known to give discounts to veterans.
A conviction for unlawfully possessing or selling ketamine in Nevada is a felony and could result in at least a year in prison.
