Ketamine users say it makes them feel invincible – until they end up having to wear a nappy for the rest of their lives.
The drug that destroys bladders is now the drug of choice for young people and the number of users has doubled in five years. Border officials reported record seizures last year – 2,046 compared to 1,337 in 2023. Britain’s ketamine capital is Liverpool, with drug busts on Merseyside more than five times the national average. North Wales, Lancashire and Cumbria were not far behind.
Addiction expert Lee Fernandes said: “Ketamine is going to be the next drug crisis for the UK. It is literally everywhere – in schools, on the streets, mixed into other synthetic drug cocktails like ‘pink cocaine’. It is cheap to buy, easy to get hold of and not perceived to be as dangerous as other drugs like cocaine, heroin or ecstasy, making it extremely appealing for the younger generation experimenting with drugs.
Lee, lead therapist at UKAT Group, added: “The number of people we’re treating across our residential rehab facilities for ketamine has, for the first time ever, overtaken cocaine admissions, and we fully expect the problem to get a lot worse before it can start to get better."
All of UKAT’s eight rehab centres are treating young people hooked on it, with more women than men. Ketamine is used by the NHS as an anaesthetic, sedative and pain reliever, and is also used on animals and as a horse tranquiliser. Abusers dub it Special K or Vitamin K and say it makes them feel detached, dream-like and invincible.
But it can cause nausea and hallucinations – and chronic use can lead to bladder problems so bad that the organ has to be removed. The most famous casualty so far is Friends star Matthew Perry, who drowned in his Hollywood hot tub after a massive overdose in October 2023 aged 54.
Campaigners want the drug reclassified from B to A like heroin, ecstasy and cocaine so people take it more seriously and dealers get stiffer punishments. It would mean up to life in prison for supply and production, while possession could carry up to seven years, an unlimited fine, or both.
Those backing the move include the parents of Manchester coffee shop owner Jamie Boland who died last June aged 38 of sepsis caused by a kidney infection triggered by long-term ketamine use. An inquest heard he had used cocaine but switched to ketamine thinking it was less dangerous.
His parents Maureen and Jim said: “Ketamine can be a killer and that is what youngsters need to know. We saw the damage that it did to Jamie’s body, and how it completely transformed his life from a happy, sociable, successful business owner to a virtual recluse, in constant pain and suffering from a never-ending need to use the toilet.”
Last month a judge who sentenced a dealer at Liverpool Crown Court warned: “People in their 20s and 30s are having to spend the rest of their lives in nappies having taken ketamine.” Welsh drag star The Vivienne – who died in January aged 32 – told how she had to go to hospital three times in a month because of her addiction after getting hooked on it while working Liverpool’s club scene. Around 1.2million people in England and Wales are thought to have tried ketamine.
Among those aged 16 to 24, more took it in the last year than ecstasy or LSD and it is fast approaching the popularity of cocaine. One former addict said falling prices were driving its popularity – and he was aware of it being confiscated in schools from kids aged 12.
He said: “The price has fallen from £70 to £20 for an eighth (3.5 grams). Dealers are all undercutting each other and the quality has got much worse to keep the profit margin. You don’t really know what you’re taking. You can taste salt in it. You can taste MSG in the cutting agents.
“Drugs come in generations. And unfortunately, for this younger generation now, ketamine is the go-to. Young people will think nothing of going out and chucking a tenner in each for a bag a ketamine. It’s a proper hidden epidemic.”
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