Ketamine addiction is a “rapidly growing national problem”, a leading UK doctor with more than 20 years’ experience in treating substance abuse has warned.
Private clinics specialising in ketamine addiction have seen a rise in young people seeking treatment, while NHS services have reported similar increases.
And experts say these figures are just the tip of the iceberg, as a far greater number of people with problems do not seek help.
Owen Bowden-Jones, consultant psychiatrist and founder of pioneering clinic Club Drug, fears some people are now using the drug to alleviate mental health problems.
It suggests the rise in addiction could be a result of people having difficulty accessing NHS psychiatric services for other problems, such as trauma.
Clinics specialising in ketamine addiction (pictured) have reported an increase in the number of young people seeking treatment.
UK Addiction Treatment said admissions figures for ketamine, which usually comes in the form of a crystalline powder or liquid, doubled from 198 in 2020 to 397 in 2023.
Professor Bowden-Jones said The Guardian that in his experience, young people who have “experienced trauma” are using the drug as an “emotional anesthetic.”
He added: “I have the feeling that the vast majority use it to self-medicate for emotional distress.
“That suggests to me that they found a pharmacological shortcut to control their mental health.”
The number of people with ketamine dependence seeking help from NHS drug and alcohol services has doubled in recent years – from 1,140 in 2019 to 2,211 in 2023.
Rehabs UK also received 4,000 enquiries in 2023, with ketamine accounting for 30 per cent so far in 2024, up from 15 per cent in 2023.
Figures released by the Office for National Statistics show that one in twenty (4.8 per cent) of 20- to 24-year-olds in England and Wales admitted to taking the drug last year.
This is despite the fact that Generation Z is increasingly rejecting other types of drugs, including cannabis, cocaine and MDMA, also known as ecstasy.
Another concerned expert is Dr Irene Guerrini, who opened her clinic in Bexley in 2022 after noticing a rise in young people with ketamine addiction, leaving many “with significant medical distress”.
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 damage to the bladder and kidneys.
The drug is attracting new attention because of its role in the death of Friends star Matthew Perry (pictured), who was given ketamine up to six times a day in the week before his death.
In recent years there has been growing interest in ketamine, also known as vitamin K, Special K or Ket, as a possible treatment for mental health.
The drug increases levels of glutamate in the brain, a neurotransmitter crucial for mood regulation, learning, memory and information processing.
Ketamine therapy works by taking an extremely low dose of the drug, to elicit its glutamate-enhancing effects, and then working through the issues with a trained psychotherapist.
By taking the drug, the patient opens up emotionally and becomes more receptive to therapy, proponents say.
The treatment has attracted endorsements from high-profile celebrities including Sharon Osborne, Chrissy Teigen and Elon Musk.
However, ketamine therapy, as it is 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, was reported to have attempted to obtain ketamine from mental health clinics before purchasing it illegally.
His assistant injected him with the drug and later returned to find him face down in the water.
Here, we reveal how the substance, now used in private clinics for its supposed anti-depressant effect, can wreak havoc on the body within an hour of taking a large dose, leaving users paralysed, unable to breathe and choking on their own vomit.
Despite concerns, ketamine is allowed to be prescribed as an “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 now offer it to treat depression, and doctors already use ketamine as an anesthetic 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 within 10 to 20 minutes, leading to a feeling of dizziness and fainting.
Tolerance to the drug is known to develop quickly, which can cause users to want to take more to get high, putting them at risk of overdose.
Higher doses can also cause a phenomenon called “k-hole,” an intense feeling of dissociation, delirium, and disconnection or inability to connect with reality.
Dr Sham Singh, a psychiatrist at the Winit Clinic, previously told MailOnline: “It can be highly addictive because it is a dissociative anaesthetic which has euphoric and hallucinatory effects and therefore becomes dangerous.”