Ketamine overtakes 'speed' in popularity as an illegal party drug as police seizures soar

See more Daily Mail on Google - save us as a Preferred Source Published: 17:17 EDT, 6 September 2026 | Updated: 17:17 EDT, 6 September 2026 Ketamine is soaring in popularity as an illegal party drug, new figures show, as police seize more of it than amphetamines.Home Office figures reveal forces recorded 1,845 offences of possessing the veterinary tranquilliser in 2025-26, up 151 per cent from 735 in 2020-21.By comparison amphetamine possession has more than halved over the same five years, falling from 2,576 offences to 1,209.The data will intensify concerns over ketamine becoming a dominant drug among young people despite grave risks – with a single 'hit' costing as little as £2, far less than a pint of beer.Known as 'K' or 'Special K', the drug can lead to a relaxed and dream-like sensation, but taking too much can cause temporary paralysis in what users term a 'k-hole'.It can be fatal, especially when mixed with other drugs or alcohol, and can lead to heart problems and hallucinations.Longer-term use can lead to memory loss, mental health problems and organ damage.A separate survey of every police force in England and Wales, carried out under freedom of information laws, revealed how sharply the drug has taken hold in individual areas. Ketamine in its powdered form, a veterinary tranquilliser used as an illegal recreational drugResponses showed Merseyside is the ketamine capital of Britain, with police there recording 331 possession offences in 2025-26, nearly three times the Metropolitan Police's tally. The true scale is likely to be higher still because Home Office counting rules record a suspect caught with several drugs against the most serious substance alone, which would hide ketamine behind cocaine.Home Office data also shows most users caught with the drug escape with little more than a ticking off, with fewer than a third of outcomes in 2025-26 ending in a charge.Almost half of those cases were settled with an informal disposal such as a 'community resolution', up from just over a fifth in 2020-21, when the drug was far less widely used.Zaheen Ahmed, of drug treatment specialist the UKAT Group, said: 'Ketamine addicts are presenting to our treatment centres in dire states.'Young men and women, some as young as 18, are already incontinent or have severe bladder problems, including excruciating cramps and needing the toilet every five minutes.'Every single person we're treating for ketamine addiction has said the same thing to us: they never believed ketamine could cause this level of damage to their body.'It's so sad to see but we're treating more people so far this year than we ever have done in a full year.'Research by King's College London has counted 696 deaths involving illicit ketamine since 1999, with victims including RuPaul's Drag Race UK winner The Vivienne and Friends star Matthew Perry.Supermodel Cara Delevingne became the latest star to lay bare its grip, revealing in June that she spent her twenties hooked before getting sober in 2022.Ketamine's growing dominance comes just months after government drug advisers, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), rejected calls to upgrade it from Class B to Class A, the same as heroin, crack and cocaine.A government spokesman said: 'We are committed to driving down drug-related harms and deaths, and remain on high alert to the dangers of ketamine and other emerging drug threats.'We are grateful to the ACMD for its report on ketamine.'We are carefully considering its recommendations, including on the appropriate classification of ketamine.'