Ketamine addiction: Rise in young people taking Ketamine prompts health warning

• Special Report by Anna Youssef, ITV News Granada Reports

A woman who was severely addicted to Ketamine has said she's seen first hand the harm the damage the so-called "party drug" causes.

Danielle Pickles, 30, spoke out to raised awareness of the risks following a rise in addiction among young people.

Danielle told how she started taking Ketamine, a Class B drug, when she was just 15-years-old after succumbing to peer pressure.

Tragically for Danielle, the ketamine soon acted as a gateway drug to harder Class A drugs like heroin.

She said: "I was lured in by the buzz of taking drugs.

"There's no concept of time when you are on ketamine. and I thought it was taking me away from my troubles."

But that was far from the reality for Danielle, who has had to cope with watching friends lose their lives to the drug or need surgery to repair the damage it’s done to their bodies.

There has been a sharp rise in the number of young people developing severe bladder issues and requiring risky operations due to Ketamine addiction.

The mother of one user said: "It destroys everything inside you basically. I know loads of people who have got (stoma) bags...because it makes them incontinent. "

Danielle believes the drug has become popular with young people because it's cheap and easy to get hold of.

She said: "It’s a lot cheaper and easier to get hold of than other drugs."

She is now in recovery after completing a drug rehab programme called The Exodus Project.

Danielle now volunteers for the charity she says saved her life.

But as Ketamine use continues to spiral and with NHS support services stretched to the limit - many others may struggle to beat their addiction.

What is Ketamine?

Ketamine is synthetic drug used in the medical and veterinary practice and is generally administered as an anaesthetic or painkiller.

It is described as a 'dissociative anaesthetic' as it makes the person who consumes it detach from their pain and the environment.

The Class B drug has increased in popularity amongst young people and teenagers and has been described as a "party drug".

Chronic Ketamine use can have adverse side effects including, unconsciousness, cognitive problems including amnesia and difficulty passing urine.

Ketamine is broken down by the body and eliminated through urine and the toxic chemicals from the drug can affect bladders, leading to difficulties holding urine or even causing people to urinate blood.

Inflammation of the bladder can also lead to irreversible scarring, that - if people continue to take ketamine - will leave them without any bladder function at all, and potentially having to use a stoma bag.

Ketamine use by 16 to 24-year-olds has more tripled in the past five years.

Lancashire-based Church on The Street, a faith-based social action charity, says it's seeing an 'alarming increase" of young people becoming addicted to Ketamine.

It says it has reached the point where many of the addicts are "in agony and longer have functioning bladders".

Pastor Mick Fleming, who founded Church on the Street, believes the drug is growing in popularity amongst younger generations because of it is cheap and easy to get hold of.

According to figures released by the NHS, the rates of probable mental illness amongst teenagers between 17 to 19 rose to 1 in 4 (25.7%) in 2022 from 1 in 10 in 2017 (10.1%).

Mick said: "It’s cheaper to use Ket than it is to get drunk. It gives you the feeling of being your body and out of your environment, and that’s very appealing for some young people."

The pastor added: "I've had people drive up to Church on The Street and beg me for help and they just say, "I can't stop".

"There's no substitute drug you can take to counteract the effects of withdrawal, either, like methadone for heroin - when you're coming off Ket you have to go through the effects, and it's excruciating. I've seen kids getting into over £8,000 of debt with this drug.

"It started to get big during the pandemic, when people weren't able to mix. Ketamine is a cheap drug that helps you escape reality, and now you've got kids at the age of 18 and they're urinating blood.

"County lines gangs are getting girls hooked on Ketamine and using them for sex. And it's nearly impossible for young people to get rehab, with ten years of cuts to addiction services - especially for something like Ketamine, which isn't considered as life threatening as other drugs.

"And young people just don't yet have the same years and years of addiction and its chronic, life-threatening effects for rehab facilities to take them, and so they don't get the same support - but if they got it now, it could stop them spiralling into that terrible state."

Tyra Forster, a senior therapist at UK Addiction Treatment Group said: " Particularly unique to Ketamine addiction is the severe effect it has on the body and the organs, particularly the bladder and the issues it has, possibly irreversible issues in a lot of cases on the bladder and its functioning and that is through prolonged use of the drug."