Would you get injected with Special K for $382?

You know sometimes you’re browsing the classifieds in a newspaper or checking out the volunteer tab on Craigslist – and there’s some ridiculous offer to take some experimental drugs as part of a study?  Well…now imagine actual and honorable college students doing something like that.

At Britain’s uber-prestigious Cambride University, students were paid $387 to take part in a psychiatric study in which they were injected with a horse tranquillizer ketamine, better known as “Special K”.  The report was designed to investigate treatment methods for schizophrenia.  How? Well apparently, those who suffer from schizophrenia feel as though external objects have become a part of their body – which is also how ketamine users feel.

The experiment was simple: Inject students with ketamine and test whether or not they would identify a rubber hand as their own.  I mean, are these people nuts?  These are COLLEGE students!  At Cambridge! I understand that for something like this, one needs a human to study – but why not homeless people or the like? I don’t get it.

One student was quoted as saying, “After they increased the dose I began to hallucinate.  It made me feel scared. It felt like the bed was floating up and I felt very disoriented I couldn’t find my way to the bathroom. It was quite disturbing. I needed the money at the time and I wouldn’t do it again.” 

Thoughts here???