Woman's Hour - Parenting: Ketamine

Episode Date: March 27, 2019

According to the latest government crime survey for England and Wales, Ketamine, a powerful horse tranquilizer and anaesthetic is an increasingly popular drug of choice for teenagers. The proportion of 16- to 24-year-olds using the drug rose in 2017-18 rose from 1.2% to 3.1%, the highest figure since records of ketamine use began in 2006-07. Joining Jane to talk about what Ketamine is, its effects – and what every parent should be aware of is Lauren Moss, BBC South East Social Affairs & Education Correspondent who has been investigating the drug, Wendy Teasdill whose 18-year old daughter Eleanor died from taking the drug at a festival and Professor Celia Morgan, Professor of Psychopharmacology at Exeter University.

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hi, this is Jane Garvey and this is the Woman's Hour Parenting Podcast. This week it's on the subject of ketamine and ketamine use by Britain's teenagers. The latest government crime survey for England and Wales reports that ketamine is indeed an increasingly popular drug for teenagers. The proportion of 16 to 24-year-olds using it rose in 2017 to 18 from 1.2 to 3.1%. That's the highest figure since records began in 2006 to 7. I talked to Lauren Moss, who's BBC South East social affairs and education correspondent. She has been investigating the drug for the BBC. Wendy Teasdale joined us. Her 18-year-old daughter, Eleanor, had died after taking the drug in combination with alcohol at

a festival. And we also talked to Professor Celia Morgan, who is a professor of psychopharmacology at Exeter University. I asked Celia what ketamine is. Ketamine's a type of drug known as a dissociative anaesthetic. So it was originally developed as an anaesthetic drug. And the drug company that developed it were at first really impressed by the fact it's got very strong analgesic effects. And unlike any other anaesthetics, it doesn't slow your breathing and your heart rate. But with increasing clinical experience with ketamine, people noticed that people were coming experience with ketamine people notice that people are coming around from ketamine anesthesia reporting a lot of out-of-body experiences

hallucinations and that's limited the the widespread clinical use of the drug although it's still used today in developing countries in anesthesia and in chronic pain. When did you first become aware of it as a recreational drug so-called? So I think it I mean in the first reports came out so ketamine was developed back in the 60s and there were reports early as the 70s but it was very very minor levels of use and amongst medical professionals initially who'd heard about the drug through its clinical use but then in the UK I think its use first emerged in the 90s. And to start with, it was used as an adulterant in ecstasy tablets at raves.

So people used to cut ecstasy tablets with it. And ketamine had the kind of reputation nobody wanted to take ketamine. And some people stopped doing ecstasy tablets because they were worried about them being cut with ketamine. But something changed, I think, in the early 2000s it's people started to use the drug on its own but again it was very confined to subcultures so particularly the gay scene and and travelers sort of um cultures uh but yeah then it used to became a bit more widespread at that stage it was controlled under the medicines act um which controls drugs for medical use but it wasn't um under the misuse of drugs act but in 2006 um the government classified it

as a class c substance at first um and that had a kind of uh an opposite effect as i think they hoped for and these increased so people perhaps heard about the drug more being a licit substance yeah it is now a class b drug isn't it yeah so that changed in 2014 and then and the and the use initially dropped off a bit so um as the supply routes they dried up after becoming a class b substance but but yeah over the past couple of years its use seems to have increased dramatically in the uk wendy can you take us through what happened to your daughter? She was at a music festival, which so many teenagers go. Yes, she was at Boomtown Festival working for Oxfam as a steward. She'd done her first shift with her friend and they were walking around. She had a can of lager and they saw the fairground and decided they'd like to go on, I don't know, whirly things.

I went back to the tent, first of all, to take some ketamine. Now, knowing what I now know about ketamine, I realise she can't have known an awful lot about it because to go on a fairground after taking you know fairgrounds ride after taking ketamine seems a strange choice because it's as Celia said it's dissociative and actually they took the ketamine and you lose depends how much you take I suppose but she lost the use of her limbs she lay down she never woke up that that was what happened she died in some disassociative happy state i suppose leaving us all in confusion um i'm so sorry i mean this is absolutely appalling obviously for you and for the rest of your family um i gather though the message you're keen to impart is that you shouldn't no parent can afford to be complacent here and just think oh

well that my child wouldn't do that absolutely i had no idea she was always such an open person as well i could talk to her about pretty well anything we always did we've always had very open discussions in our family around the kitchen table about anything and it was in fact it turns out the third time she'd taken it she wasn't a habitual user one key component was that she had it in conjunction with the alcohol which she consumed already that was an unknown factor I didn't know anything about ketamine I could never have imagined my daughter would take ketamine to me that was just a really stupid thing to do but um apparently not it's a normal thing so yes it was a shock um a real shock and i thought i knew my daughter but all children

or any young people you know young people from 14 upwards we're hearing are liable to do things and they don't want to tell their parents of course lauren um you i know bought ketamine um you were able to buy it was it in any way difficult to get hold of no not at all and i think that's the the worrying thing about this especially how accessible it is i've spoken to young people who've told me they're using it increasingly at parties recreationally and the effects last for about an hour. So it's very difficult for people to know that someone is using it. And they told me that they're buying it on the dark net, which is sort of a backdoor access into the internet that we don't see, that we don't use on a regular basis. And once you're shown how to do that, and it is quite

easy to do, I was shown and I had discussions with BBC legal teams and editorial teams and so on to get permission to do this. For £10, I was able to buy some ketamine. It was delivered to me in the post, virtually untraceable. And I was also sent a handful of tablets, which I didn't order. I took all of this to be tested in a laboratory in London. And they told me that in fact, it was ketamine, like I had ordered. I had also been sent some class a MDMA or ecstasy tablets as well sort of as a as a bonus or an incentive really to use that dealer and it's you know it's staggeringly worrying people don't know what they're taking very briefly Celia if you can um let's be clear about this it's a class b drug it is illegal but Celia if you're the parent of perhaps somebody who's going to their first festival this summer

or about to go to uni, what is the practical advice about ketamine use? Well, I think perhaps the most important thing is that if you're going to take ketamine, you have someone with you who's not taking it. Because the drug's so dissociative, it rends you really vulnerable to accidents or things like sexual assault.

Also, the key advice with any drug, I think, is to take a very, very small amount. And people who use other recreational drugs like cocaine often take a similar amount of ketamine, but ketamine is much, much stronger. So just urge them to take a much smaller amount than they would have any other recreational drug. Don't do things like lock yourself in a toilet cubicle, because if you do become completely dissociated and lose consciousness then no one will be able to help you and I think those are the key things and obviously don't drink alcohol or eat beforehand because you'll be much more likely to vomit. That is practical advice Celia but I think some parents would prefer us simply to say that the only advice worth giving teenagers is don't take drugs.

Aren't they right? Don't they have a point? Well, they have a point in some ways. In an ideal world, our kids wouldn't take drugs or drink alcohol. But we know the evidence out there is that they are taking it. And so I think it's really important we give them some harm reduction advice if they do find themselves taking it in these situations. The issue, as I understand it, is, and you did mention this during the course of the earlier conversation,

that actually a kid could take ketamine at, say, 9 o'clock at night and then go home at midnight and there would be no effects obvious. So how do parents know? Well, it's quite difficult to tell. Yes yes because it's got such short-lived effects it only lasts for about an hour i mean it's oh it's there's signs to spot really when children are developing a problem with drugs then becoming withdrawn and irritable and this is across all drugs not just ketamine i think if you see someone on ketamine it can be very disturbing for parents because they seem because it's a dissociative drug they

seem completely separate from their environment they seem like zombies in some cases they don't seem like normal people at all and it's very distressing for parents so um but in other signs to spot if they're developing a ketamine addiction would be if they're developing any cystitis problems so ketamine is quite unusual amongst all drugs in that it's associated with something called ketamine induced ulcerative cystitis where we've done studies that have shown that ketamine actually has a toxic effect on the lining of the bladder and so even when people are using ketamine recreationally, it will make them want to go to the toilet more.

As they start to become addicted to the drug, they'll develop really severe bladder problems that can culminate in them needing to have their bladders removed. I've worked with some ketamine addicts as young as 16 or 18 who've had to have their bladders removed. And this is horrendous for young people because it means you're infertile and you have to wear a colostomy bag for the rest of your life so really really serious consequences from taking the drug. That is extraordinary and if

that doesn't concentrate the minds of people but do you think that that very important public health message is given out clearly and frequently enough about the ketamine induced bladder yeah i mean i think that ketamine used dropped off around the time 2014 where the drugs legal status changed and in part i think that was because we were trying to put this message out a lot but maybe it's dropped off now so yeah really important to remind your children about that because amongst recreational drugs there aren't any other ones things like mdma and cocaine don't have these really extreme physical effects on your body that are irreversible in some cases so it does kind of distinguish ketamine and the fact that it's very addictive cocaine is addictive but mdma it's not so much associated with an addictive pattern of effects

so and also it's very different we should be very clear Lauren our correspondent that we spoke to made it clear that she'd had no trouble getting hold of ketamine it is widely available and it is cheap and it's all over the UK or is it is its use concentrated in in certain cities no I think it's really pretty widespread it's found in rural areas we've had reports of kids in schools taking ketamine in their lunch break so it's really widespread and it's cheap as well compared to other recreational drugs and I think that might be in part responsible in very pragmatic terms when we're talking to users for its spike in in use that in that its effects are short-lived and it actually reduces anxiety acutely,

unlike some other drugs. And we know anxiety is a huge problem amongst young people today. So to be clear, it decreases anxiety in the short term. Can it make you feel more anxious when its effects wear off? Yeah, like any recreational drug or even alcohol, things that reduce anxiety acutely will then have a rebound effect when their effects wear off. Yes. So that's why a sign might be your teenager is becoming

irritable and potentially withdrawn. Okay, that's really helpful, Celia. Thank you very much indeed for your time. Thank you very much, Celia. Celia Morgan, Professor of Psychopharmacology at Exeter University. And that's the Parenting Podcast for this week. If there's anything you'd like us to cover in this particular Woman's Hour podcast, make sure you tell us via the website bbc.co.uk slash Woman's Hour. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies.

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