"Whatever decision is taken on this problem, it must be lawful", he stressed.
As regards his subordinates' actions in this no-simple situation, Kharichkin said: "As a lawyer I think they worked fine".
He stressed that ketamine is not produced in Russia and "all of it is contraband". Moreover, veterinary surgeons have never practised the use of ketamine before and, when a list of narcotic substances allowed for use was in preparation, they submitted no information that ketamine is a must in their professional work.
Kharichkin said that similar preparations used in veterinary practice in such cases do exist.
"Veterinarians are wrong to say that ketamine is the only preparation to be used in surgery", he said.
In line with the present legislation, veterinarians have to get a license for the use of drugs and duly equip the storage premises.
Earlier, Irina Novozhilova, head of the animal protection rights centre Vita, said that drug control ranks ketamine as a mood-changing drug, though veterinarians are using it as an anaesthetic in complex operations on animals.
According to Novozhilova, although ketamine has since January 2004 been included in the list of preparations allowed for veterinary, veterinarians are not entitled to use it. A body issuing licenses to veterinarians has not yet been fixed, she explained.
"The situation is actually as before, when the Russian Agricultural Ministry forgot to include ketamine in the lists and operations had to be made secretly", she noted.
