In May 2022, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety activated the Integrated Management System for Narcotic Drugs. It was in response to public criticism that "the government is helpless against people who go to various hospitals as if they were shopping and touch medical narcotics." The FDA used the system to catch 5 people. Although the drug can be used according to a doctor's prescription, those caught were administered frequently and in a single dose that could not be considered a medical procedure.
Among them was a well-known actor, whose police investigation detected not only propofol but also hemp, ketamine and cocaine. Medication history can be traced for about one week in urine and one year in hair, with hemp in urine and three other types of narcotics in hair. News of his dabbling in cocaine, ketamine, and other malicious narcotics seems to have shocked even his acquaintances.
It is not uncommon to start with one type of narcotics and fall into a stronger morass of narcotics. It's called gateway drug effect theory, which starts with so-called entry-level narcotics, like marijuana, and then worsens up to meth and cocaine. There is a lot of controversy about this. It is not a common trend for adolescents who are exposed to introductory narcotics to develop addicted to malicious narcotics later in adulthood. ▶ For this reason, the argument that "the prescription of psychotropic drugs for medical purposes to adolescents suffering from illness should not be discouraged."
For some, the gate drug effect theory may hold. Nicotine and alcohol are well known as substances that cause addiction, and many studies have been conducted. However, if we look at people who fall into addiction, it is often the case in the family, which is called a "genetic predisposition." Not all people with a genetic predisposition will become addicted to nicotine and alcohol, but when people with a genetic predisposition are exposed to nicotine and alcohol, they are more likely to become addicted than those who do not. There are also studies that show that 51% of alcoholics have a genetic predisposition.
A team of researchers from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom analyzed people with a genetic predisposition to nicotine and alcoholism and found that the gateway drug-effect theory was being applied. Their addiction to tobacco and alcohol led to hemp addiction, and their addiction to hemp led to addiction to opioid painkillers (fentanyl, oxycodone, etc.). ▶ The proportion of genetic predisposition between tobacco and alcohol is reported to be 1~1%, which is one or two out of ten. ▶ In other words, one or two out of ten people may have a gateway drug effect.
Propofol, you'll be fine for once, right?
The difference between normal response and addiction is complex, but if simplified, it can be explained by differences in brain circuitry. Normal response activates the GABA cycle, and addiction activates the dopamine cycle. When propofol was developed in 1977, it was thought that there was no risk of poisoning because it activates the GABA circuit. But this was a premature conclusion of the clumsy study at the time. Subsequent animal and human studies confirmed that propofol activates the dopamine cycle. ▶ ( View related papers)
When I take propofol, an addictive general anesthetic enters my body. The reality of being abused for simple skin-care procedures is wrong. The argument that "it's okay to get it sometimes" is also sophistry. Not everyone gets addicted at once, but all addictions start at once. And that one monster is not small. A single dose of meth releases more dopamine than a lifetime of meth, and a single dose of cocaine damages the brain. ▶ ( View related papers)
If one or two people with addictive genes experience lifelong pleasures from a single dose of propofol, the "gateway drug effect" will come into play, leading to worse drug addiction. In fact, when the Food and Drug Administration examined and back-calculated the residues of illegal narcotics at all 1 sewage treatment plants nationwide last year, one out of every 57,1 people in Korea administered meth once a day.
Ketamine, a more serious criminal drug
When cocaine and ketamine were identified in celebrities, I was even more appalled by ketamine. The United Nations' International Drug Watch Organization (INCB) has designated date rape drugs, which are drugs that are difficult to prove because victims cannot remember sex crimes after sneaking them into someone else's drink to make them unconscious. It was a message from the United Nations to more thoroughly control narcotics designated as rape drugs. These include GHB and ketamine, also known as mullein. Because it is colorless and odorless, the victims are helpless.