Ketamine addiction is a ‘rapidly growing national problem’, a top UK doctor with more than 20 years’ experience treating substance abuse, has warned.
Private clinics that specialise in ketamine addiction have seen a surge young people seeking treatment, while NHS service have reported similar rises.
And experts say these figures are the tip of the iceberg with vastly greater numbers of those with problems not seeking help.
Owen Bowden-Jones, a consultant psychiatrist and founder of the pioneering Club Drug clinic, fears some are now using the drug to ease mental health problems.
He suggests that the rise in addiction could be a result of people struggling to access NHS psychiatric services for other issues, such as trauma.
Clinics that specialise in Ketamine (pictured) addiction have reported a surge in the numbers of young people seeking treatment
UK Addiction Treatment said admission numbers for ketamine, which usually comes as a crystalline powder or liquid, doubled from 198 in 2020 to 397 in 2023
Professor Bowden-Jones told The Guardian that in his experience young people who have ‘experienced trauma’ are using the drug as an ’emotional anesthetic’.
He added: ‘My sense is the vast majority are using it to self-medicate for emotional distress.
‘That would suggest to me they found a pharmacological short cut to managing their mental health.’
The number of people with ketamine dependence seeking help from NHS drug and alcohol services have doubled in recent years — from 1,140 in 2019 to 2,211 in 2023.
Rehabs UK also received 4,000 inquiries in 2023, with ketamine representing 30 per cent so far in 2024, up from 15 per cent in 2023.
Figures, released by the Office for National Statistics, show one in twenty (4.8 per cent) 20 to 24-year-olds in England and Wales last year admitted to taking the drug.
This is despite the fact that Gen Z are increasingly shunning other types of drug including cannabis, cocaine and MDMA, also known as ecstasy.
Another concerned expert is Dr Irene Guerrini, who set up her clinic in Bexley in 2022, after noticing a rise in young people with ketamine addictions, which left many ‘medically significantly unwell’.
The clinic works closely with mental health services and urologists, because the drug can cause serious bladder problems.
Other physical risks include increased blood pressure and heart rate, as well as bladder and kidney damage.
Your browser does not support iframes.
The drug is attracting fresh attention due to its role in the death of Friends star Matthew Perry (pictured), who was supplied with ketamine up to six times a day in the week before he died
There has been growing interest in ketamine, also known as Vitamin K, Special K or Ket, as a potential mental health treatment over the past few years.
The drug increases levels of a glutamate in the brain, a neurotransmitter crucial to mood regulation, learning, memory, and information processing.
Ketamine therapy works by taking an extremely low dose of the drug, to provoke its glutamate boosting effects, and then working through issues with a trained psychotherapist.
By taking the drug, a patient opens up emotionally and becomes more receptive to therapy, advocates claim.
The treatment has attracted high-profile endorsements from the likes of celebrities like of Sharon Osborne, Chrissy Teigen and Elon Musk.
However ketamine therapy, as it’s known, was also linked to the death of Friends actor Matthew Perry, who was found drowned in his hot tub last year.
The 54-year-old, who had a long history of substance abuse, had tried to obtain ketamine from mental health clinics before buying it illegally, it has been reported.
His assistant injected him with the drug and later returned to find him face town in the water.
Here, we reveal how the substance — now used in private clinics for its alleged anti-depressant effect — can wreak havoc on the body within an hour of taking one large hit, leaving users paralysed, unable to breathe and choking on their own vomit
Despite concerns, ketamine is allowed to be prescribed as a so-called ‘off-label’ treatment in the UK.
This means when a drug that is approved for another use is prescribed by doctors for another purpose.
Some private clinics currently offer it to treat depression. And ketamine is already used by doctors as anesthesia for medical procedures.
However even relatively small amounts of the drug can cause an overdose.
Typically, within a couple of minutes of taking the drug users experience an increase in heart rate and even palpitations. At the same time, blood pressure drops over 10 to 20 minutes, resulting in a woozy and faint feeling.
Tolerance to the drug is known to build quickly, which can make users want to take more to feel high, as a result putting them at risk of an overdose.
Higher doses can also lead to a phenomenon dubbed the ‘k-hole’, an intense feeling of dissociation, delirium and being disconnected or unable to connect to reality.
Dr Sham Singh, a psychiatrist at the Winit Clinic, previously told MailOnline: ‘It may be highly addictive because it is a dissociative anaesthetic that has euphoric and hallucinatory effects, and hence it becomes dangerous.’
