Dissociative Anaesthetics: Therapeutic Potential versus Threat of Abuse

New psychoactive substances circumvent legislation by changing their structure but often pose a significant risk to the population due to their toxicity. Since they are relatively accessible and can be purchased online without the need to interact with a dealer, there is even more pressure on poison centres and law enforcement authorities of the state to be able to identify/quantify such substances (reaching currently the number of approximately 950) not only in an unknown solid sample but also in different matrices. One of the popular groups of new psychoactive substances is the group of dissociative anaesthetics, the (probably) best known representative of which has made a significant impact in the fields of medicine, psychiatry, and also in the field of toxicology as a substance of abuse. This paper discusses the history of the emergence of the dissociative anaesthetic group, describes their abuse, and their potential to provide new approaches to help to treat an increasingly common disease of civilisation – depression.