Alleged killer claims memory was blanked with Ketamine
While this is certainly not my favorite type of story to report on, there is an interesting development in a rape/murder trial where the defendant says he cannot remember anything about the night of the attack because he was way too high on alcohol and ketamine. This may all be bunk to avoid a death sentence, but it does bring up an interesting legal point. Here's some of the deliberation from an recent news article:
Court heard Huppie had several drinks, plus an unknown quantity of marijuana, ecstasy, cocaine and ketamine the night the woman was attacked.
Dryden said it would be possible under the effects of a low dose of ketamine to perform complex physical functions, carry on basic conversation, but not have a memory of it, because the drug shuts down the memory processing centre of the brain.
“This is not true amnesia, forgetfulness of events, but rather a failure of memory to form, and is consistent with the lack of memory claimed by Mr. Huppie over the events of the latter part of the evening and night in question,” he said.
A “recreational dose” of ketamine is about 200 mg. Huppie has testified he and three others shared two grams of ketamine. Higher doses of ketamine, such as into the 750 mg range, would have put Huppie into a coma.
“It’s used as an anaesthetic,” he said. “They feel no pain, they retain a degree of consciousness.”
Under cross-examination, Dryden said if Huppie was peaking on ketamine, he would have been physically numb – a point the Crown cross-examined him on given the evidence he had forced sex with the victim.
“Touch is one of the first senses to go,” he said of a ketamine trip.
He added if someone is having intercourse and realizing they have had it, the effects of ketamine are likely gone or wearing off.
Now I'm not a fancy big city lawyer, but I do know a thing or two about Ketamine and sex. It is possible, you just don't feel it. Also, rational inhibition is wiped out, so things tend to get a little primal. If the defendant did take a large dose of K I believe he may have no memory of the event, but the same can be said with high doses of alcohol or low doses of ether where the rational forebrain is knocked out while the primal body keeps looking for action. This brings up an interesting legal point when trying to assess motivation for crimes committed in this state. I'm not saying drug blackouts excuse horrible acts like rape and murder, but it does demonstrate the horror and senselessness of self-induced psychotic episodes gone bad. If you leave your body, who's in charge?
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Recently @ DoseNation
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nicely put, and very much true. you lose connection with any particular timestream, and the idea of consequences seems almost irrelevant, i.e., from here, you're basically a complete sociopath. who's holding the other end of the leash?
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