The Federal Government has put up $2 million to fund trials using the drug ketamine to treat depression.

International trials have led to some promising results, but local authorities want their own data to argue for approval from the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).

The TGA allows the use of ketamine as an anaesthetic and painkiller, but not as a treatment for depression.

Some alos choose to use the drug recreationally, and say it produces an out-of-body, euphoric and anaesthetic sensation.

The study will be run by researchers from the University of New South Wales, on behalf of the Black Dog Institute.

“We need to properly test if we can use ketamine as a treatment over a whole course of multiple doses,” UNSW’s study leader Professor Colleen Loo told the ABC.

“If you give a single treatment, the studies show that you get an amazing anti-depressant response that lasts at least a few days.

“But what no study has shown is how can you use it as a clinically useful treatment to get a lasting response.”

“Is it effective and is it safe? We don't actually have that data [and] this trial will answer that question.

“I think controversy surrounding ketamine [is that] it is used as a drug of abuse and so there are concerns, but if used in a carefully, controlled medical context, then that hasn't been shown to be a problem,” Professor Loo said.

Ketamine was brought to prominence this year after reports that some mental health clinics were selling kits including vial of the drug that patients could use to inject themselves at home.

“It's one of these fields where the clinical application has run ahead of proper research testing,” Professor Loo said.

“Clinics have run ahead and actually started to treat people and to run it as a business, so that's why this trial is so critical to do now and as quickly as we can.”

The trial is slated to begin in April 2016, looking at 200 patients who have not responded to existing medication.

The study will compare ketamine with a placebo treatment over four weeks.