Ketamine: Misuse
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of the reclassification of ketamine as a class B drug on the rate of usage among 16 to 59 year olds annually since 2015.
Answered by Sarah Jones
Ketamine is a dangerous substance, which can cause irreversible bladder damage and in some cases death. Ministers are very concerned about the harms ketamine causes and on 16 October 2025 the Department for Health and Social Care launched a campaign to alert young people to the dangers of that drug (as well as counterfeit medicines containing synthetic opioids, and THC vapes).
Ketamine was moved from Class C to Class B within Schedule 2 to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (MDA) in 2014, following a review of its harms by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD). The ACMD noted that “although there is limited evidence of ketamine misuse causing social harm, evidence of physical harm (mainly chronic bladder toxicity but also an increase in acute toxicity) has increased”.
We have not carried out an assessment of the effects of that reclassification. The drivers of the availability, market price and prevalence of drugs are complex. The control of drugs under the MDA is an important means of reducing their availability and gives law enforcement the powers to target criminals involved in supplying harmful substances. In 2024 there were 2,014 prosecutions and 1,507 convictions in England and Wales for offences relating to the possession and trafficking of ketamine.
In January 2025 the Government asked the ACMD to provide an updated harms assessment of ketamine. The ACMD carried out a public call for evidence in August and we expect to receive its report by the end of 2025. We will carefully consider its recommendations.
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