Every year, millions of Americans are reported to be suffering from depression, and many of those who actually seek treatment are not able to fully recover. When all treatment options are tested, a new study suggests that an illegal party drug ketamine can come in handy.

A study conducted by Oxford University suggests that thousands of people can find relief from depression when they are given ketamine, an illegal party drug, Daily Mail reported. Ketamine is a horse tranquilizer which is said to be helpful for the patients who do not respond to other treatment options or the conventional anti depressants.

A total of 42 percent of the people who went through the treatment of Oxford researchers responded to the treatment which uses ketamine. The drug was injected to the patients over a 40-minute time period once or twice in a week.

The researchers said that Ketamine has been able to provide relief to the patients who were suffering from depression, after trying out other treatment options and nothing worked, Independent reported. They now say that this is a new approach to the use of drugs, considering that they have been using ketamine for six years.

Rupert McShane, a consultant psychiatrist said that many people today are resistant to anti-depressant drugs and psychotherapies and that they are looking forward to seeing more centers specialize in the use ketamine to treat depression.

A patient who has undergone the treatment said that ketamine played a role in helping slow down the they way negative intrusive thoughts surge through his brain and said that she had the ability and the chance to fight these thoughts back.

Dr. McShane said that other than ketamine, there is only one other treatment that is 70 percent effective in treating depression, and that is electroconvulsive therapy or the ECT.