Ketamine use appears to be rising sharply on the illegal party drug scene, with fresh figures showing police are now recording more seizures and possession offences linked to the substance than to amphetamines.
According to Home Office data, police forces logged 1,845 offences for possession of the veterinary tranquilliser in 2025-26 — a 151 per cent jump from the 735 cases recorded in 2020-21.
Over the same five-year period, amphetamine possession offences moved in the opposite direction, dropping by more than half from 2,576 to 1,209.
The figures are likely to fuel growing alarm that ketamine is becoming one of the most prominent drugs among young people, despite serious health dangers and a street price that can be as low as £2 a dose — cheaper than many pints of beer.
Often referred to as “K” or “Special K,” ketamine can produce a calm, detached, dream-like high, but heavier use may trigger a frightening state of temporary paralysis known among users as 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 drug
Responses 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.’