How Britain fell into the K-hole

An estimated 269,000 Brits aged 16-59 years old used the drug in the year ending March 2024 .

Despite its prevalence, there remains little consensus about what the drug represents, or indeed what it actually does.

Unlike cannabis, cocaine or mushrooms, ketamine has no deep history or hinterland: it is a product of pharmaceutical modernity.

Ketamine was legalised in the UK and popular among 'designer drugs' in the Nineties.

It was added to class C of the controlled drug schedules by Tony Blair's government in 2005 .

In 2014 , the government responded to its growing popularity by raising its legal status to a class B class B.

The first UK ketamine clinic, Awakn , opened in Bristol in 2020 , charging 6,000 for a course of injections in a clinical setting for the treatment of anxiety, depression, PTSD and addiction.

But it closed down in 2024 because of struggles to recruit private patients, and following an allegation of sexual misconduct against its most prominent practitioner.