KETAMINE
ACMD advises government to keep ketamine as class B
' People are struggling and they’ re young people – I’ m talking 16 to 18-year-olds.'
TOM’ S STORY
A 26-year-old man from Scunthorpe whose struggle with ketamine left him hospitalised with liver and kidney failure shares his life-saving story
Tom Kirk was told in March 2024 that his bladder, kidneys and liver were functioning at 20 per cent after six years of taking ketamine. Doctors warned him that he would die if he kept taking the drug.‘ My grandma was worrying about having to go to my funeral,’ he says.‘ I was sitting there thinking that no 25-year-old should be in hospital, unable to walk like that because of drugs.’
Having first taken the drug at Creamfields festival in 2018, Tom began to struggle during the COVID lockdowns. When he returned to work, he was spending a £ 50 daily on ketamine – taking it before work, during breaks, at lunch, and after work. When he was made redundant, his use increased.‘ I ' d try to go to sleep but I ' d get up to go to the toilet every 20 minutes,’ he says.‘ I was in excruciating pain for hours and hours, sat in the shower – before going back into my room to take more ketamine.’
The drug was‘ escapism from reality,’ he says.‘ And I feel like that ' s a big thing for people, especially people with poor mental health – it takes them away from the world they ' re in.’ The physical toll was devastating, however. The ureter tubes from his kidneys to his bladder were blocked with infections and inflammation and he was bed-bound for two months, with nephrostomy bags in his back to help him urinate because the ketamine had damaged and shrunk his bladder.
But Tom’ s story doesn’ t end there. Through WithYou’ s support, he secured three months in rehab, and then began attending group sessions at partner organisation, Double Impact. Today, he works for Double Impact, running a weekly ketamine group and contributing to Lincolnshire council’ s ketamine research team. Ketamine cases among WithYou’ s young clients rose from under 10 per cent in 2019-20, to 23 per cent in 2024-25, and his recovery work is now about helping others like him.
‘ People are struggling and they’ re young people – I’ m talking 16 to 18-year-olds,’ Tom says.‘ I try and tell my story to share where I ' ve been and where I ' m at now. It took me being in hospital for a month to get help. Recovery is far from easy. That’ s why these groups are so good – these people have the same goals but come from completely different backgrounds.’ DDN
Ketamine should remain a class B substance, the ACMD has advised. However, police and health professionals need better support to‘ identify, prevent and respond’ to ketaminerelated harms, it stresses.
The government asked the ACMD to review the prevalence and harms of ketamine misuse and for its advice on reclassifying the drug to class A last year.‘ After examining the latest evidence, engaging with people with lived or living experience with the substance, consulting stakeholders, and reviewing academic research, the ACMD concluded ketamine should not be reclassified and should remain in class B,’ the council stated.
People with experience of ketamine use and harms said that upgrading the drug to class A would be unlikely to lower rates of use, while health and social care professionals were also largely opposed to reclassification. The AMCD report highlighted that many acute harms experienced by ketamine users‘ are likely to be significantly influenced by using other drugs at the same time, and that reclassifying ketamine in isolation would unlikely reduce prevalence or misuse’. Ketamine was controlled as a class C substance in 2006, then reclassified as class B in 2014.
Among the ACMD’ s recommendations are for a national patient safety alert on ketamine to be cascaded to all NHS health organisations, and that drug services, education and social care providers, mental health services, primary care and hospitals should‘ work collaboratively to deliver holistic support’ – including drug treatment alongside specialist urology, pain management, hepatology and gastroenterology services. DDN
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