Hong Kong’s party drug of choice, ketamine, is taken in clubs and brought to bed

THEY CALL IT the K-hole, but for some users, it’s the height of drugged-out bliss: a warm and weightless fugue state they compare to an out-of-body or even near-death experience. Here’s how one user, a 17-year-old, described the sensation to an academic researcher: “It is the funniest feeling, floating in the air. I couldn’t stand. I found myself floating more and more.”

The ride comes courtesy of ketamine, or k-jai, as it’s colloquially called in Hong Kong. Virtually unknown a decade ago, the white powder has become the city’s go-to chemical enhancement, as ubiquitous in some dance clubs as throbbing break-beats and sweaty bodies. In fact, ketamine has leapfrogged rave staple ecstasy as the most popular recreational drug. According to government statistics from 2006, 73 percent of drug users under 21 reported trying ketamine; only 40 percent said they’d used ecstasy. And ketamine’s popularity is exploding even as use of harder drugs like heroin or methamphetamine wanes.

“It’s fair to say Hong Kong holds the record for ketamine use,” says Karen Joe-Laidler, a sociologist at Hong Kong University who analyzes patterns of drug use. “This is distinctly a Hong Kong thing.”

First synthesized in the early 1960s, ketamine is used primarily as an anesthetic in veterinary clinics – although researchers are currently studying its applicability as an antidepressant. Joe-Laidler says recreational use of the drug spread in concert with the rave scene, where it is often taken in conjunction with ecstasy. “People take it as a way to shift their high,” she says. “When you use ketamine, you feel immobile, like you can’t use your body. With ecstasy, you want to move all the time. So ketamine is the equivalent of taking a time out in the dance scene.” In an interview Joe-Laidler conducted for a recent study of ketamine use in Hong Kong, a 22-year-old user recalled taking ketamine after popping ecstasy at a rave party: “We snorted it in the toilet,” she said. “It made me feel faint [and] confused, like floating in the air. The floating feeling is like when you listen to music, you feel like you’re physically oppressed, and when you dance, you feel you are releasing the oppression. It feels very pleasant.”

Although ketamine is known primarily as a club drug, some users say they also take it – again, often in conjunction with ecstasy – to enhance sexual encounters. James, an IT worker in his mid-40s, says he has used ketamine periodically for the past seven years, often at gay sex parties. Usually, he says, party attendees snort the drug while waiting for ecstasy to take effect. “You can have really wild sex on [ecstasy],” he says. “With [ketamine], it’s more relaxed.” Another infrequent user, a 38-year-old finance worker, says he’s also used the drug to facilitate sex. “It makes me feel peaceful, relaxed. It can be a painkiller, so it makes me feel less pain while doing anal intercourse.”

Ketamine powder, which often comes packaged in folded HK$20 notes, can be snorted or crushed and sprinkled into a drink. For users, it offers obvious advantages over other drugs. Euphoria kicks in almost immediately, and its effects are relatively short lasting, typically ebbing after 15 or 20 minutes. Unlike heroin or methamphetamine (or “ice”), it’s not physically addictive – although, as with any drug, habitual use can lead to psychological dependence. Most importantly, says Joe-Laidler, ketamine is inexpensive, with an average street price ranging from about HK$170 to $325 per gram. Cocaine, by contrast, can cost around $1,200 per gram in Hong Kong. Ketamine is even cheaper and more plentiful in nightclubs in Shenzhen, and many young Hong Kong people make the short weekend trek expressly to score the drug. While arrests of young people in Hong Kong for drug offenses fell by about 25 percent between 2004 and 2006, arrests of Hong Kong people in southern Guangdong province leaped nearly 75 percent.

Indeed, both mainland and Hong Kong authorities have stepped up enforcement measures as ketamine use has spread. In 2001, China began strictly regulating licensed manufacturers of the drug, cutting off a convenient pipeline to the rest of the world. (Most recreational ketamine is siphoned or stolen from veterinary clinics and hospitals.) In Hong Kong, where ketamine possession has been illegal without a prescription since 2000, police have recently made a number of high-profile arrests of ketamine smugglers. In late November last year, Hong Kong’s Customs Enforcement Department made the largest bust in history, seizing 307kg of ketamine and 10kg of methamphetamine hidden inside speakers in a cargo shipment that police say originated in India. Customs chief superintendent Daniel Tam Wai-lun said the shipment’s $41.3 million street value exceeded that of all drug busts in 2007 – a measure both of the increased level of police scrutiny and of Hong Kong’s increasing appetite for the drug.

And Hong Kong isn’t just attacking the supply of ketamine. In November, the government’s Task Force on Youth Drug Abuse floated the idea of compulsory drug testing. Government researchers have already begun developing a field sobriety test similar to that used for suspected drunk-drivers. Under the proposed law, police would be allowed to test people who failed such a spot check. First-time offenders would get off with a warning. But those caught repeatedly could face rehab or jail. (Ketamine possession carries a possible HK$1 million fine and seven years imprisonment.)

Hong Kong authorities have also begun highlighting ketamine’s potentially deleterious health effects in an attempt to dissuade young people from using it. In August, a team of doctors from two Hong Kong public hospitals published one of the first studies of the drug’s consequences. After examining 10 users, they found that repeated use of the drug appears to cause severe kidney and bladder damage. In some cases, they found, bladder function was so compromised that users had to urinate every 15 minutes.

That news alone may not be enough to curb ketamine’s popularity. After all, we already know that drugs aren’t good for us. But authorities are betting that the combined specter of wrecked kidneys and possible jail time might just be enough to kill Hong Kong’s newest buzz.