Name layer
Ketamine belongs in SCM’s dissociative / arylcyclohexylamine lane, not the serotonergic tryptamine, phenethylamine, or lysergamide lanes. It is often discussed beside psychedelics because of altered-state, depression, and clinic-access debates, but its evidence and safety vocabulary is different.
Keep racemic ketamine, ketamine hydrochloride injection, compounded ketamine products, and esketamine / Spravato separate. A source about one of those objects should not automatically be used for the others.
Anesthetic, dissociative, and antidepressant evidence
DailyMed labels ketamine hydrochloride injection as an anesthetic product. Depression research and clinic use are a separate evidence lane: a PubMed-indexed two-site randomized controlled trial reported antidepressant efficacy of ketamine in treatment-resistant major depression, while later review literature discusses dose, rate, route, duration, and frequency questions.
Those depression sources are not the same thing as an FDA-approved racemic-ketamine depression indication. SCM should describe ketamine depression use with trial/source precision and avoid implying that every ketamine clinic, compounded product, dose route, or maintenance protocol has the same evidence posture.
Esketamine / Spravato boundary
Spravato is esketamine nasal spray, not racemic ketamine. The source rail includes Drugs@FDA and DailyMed Spravato entries so SCM can point readers to the regulated esketamine lane without collapsing it into generic ketamine.
The practical rule: if a story is about Spravato, call it esketamine / Spravato and use Spravato sources. If a story is about ketamine hydrochloride, off-label IV ketamine, or compounded ketamine, use sources that name that object directly.
Legal, registry, and compounding caveats
The eCFR source below is a U.S. federal Schedule III checkpoint for ketamine; it is not a global legal map. ClinicalTrials.gov is included as a registry checkpoint for ongoing or historical ketamine studies, not as efficacy evidence by itself.
FDA’s compounded-ketamine warning is included because public discourse often jumps from promising ketamine research to at-home or compounded psychiatric-use claims. SCM should keep FDA-approved products, off-label clinician-administered care, clinical trials, and compounded-product risk warnings in separate buckets.
SCM reading rule
Ketamine is a useful atlas page precisely because it is adjacent to psychedelic medicine but not identical to classic serotonergic psychedelics. The page should help readers navigate the distinction rather than flatten it.
Community references such as PsychonautWiki can help readers understand phenomenology and vocabulary, but they should never carry clinical, regulatory, legal, or dosing claims on their own.