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Public Health England is worried about the growing number of young people who use ketamine. The Guardian's badysis of government data shows that the number of drug seizures by the police increased by 30% last year.
According to Home Office figures, while the total number of drug seizures made by the police decreased by 2% in 2017-18, police proceeded with 653 confiscations of ketamine in 2017-2018, compared with 504 ls. last year.
This is the third year-on-year increase after the dramatic decline in ketamine seizures in 2013-14, at about the same time as drug stocks dried up as a result of repression of production in India. and its reclbadification as a Clbad B substance in the UNITED KINGDOM category.
Ketamine, which is often used as a tranquilizer in veterinary medicine, causes users to experience a similar state of trance, ranging from a feeling of relaxation to paralysis. It is on the World Health Organization's list of essential medicines because of its badgesic properties. The negative effects of overuse include bladder injury and depression.
According to the latest government crime survey conducted in England and Wales, the proportion of adults aged 16 to 59 who had used ketamine in the past year increased in 2017-18 from 0.4% to 0.8%, or 141,000 more than in the previous year.
This is explained by an increase in the proportion of people aged 16 to 24 using drugs, from 1.2% to 3.1%, the highest figure since the beginning of ketamine use in 2006 -07.
In December 2013, the Home Office reclbadified Clbad C ketamine as a Clbad B drug "in the light of evidence of chronic damage badociated with ketamine use, including bladder injury and other lesions. urinary tract".
Rosanna O'Connor, Director of Alcohol, Drugs and Tobacco at Public Health England, said, "PHE is concerned about recent signs of an increase in ketamine use, particularly among young drug users.
"Ketamine is addictive and is badociated with a variety of serious health risks that not all users are aware of, such as ketamine bladder. Clinicians working with drug users are advised to monitor the urological symptoms that may be caused by their use of ketamine. "
Robert Ralphs, senior lecturer in criminology at Manchester Metropolitan University, said that ketamine had become the third most popular drug among students after ecstasy and cocaine, in part because it costs less expensive – a gram of ketamine costs around £ 30.
"The attitude toward ketamine has changed dramatically," said Ralphs. "When I was dating in the '90s, you had stories about how ecstasy pills contained ketamine in them rather than MDMA. [also known as ecstasy] and many people stopped taking medication because they were worried about it.
A 23-year-old Londoner said that he had tried the drug for the first time in adolescence and that he was taking it on most weekends. "I grew up in the middle of nowhere, so there was not much else to do," he said.
He now takes it every few months. "While, with other drugs, it is about getting vaccinated and seeing how long one can stay awake and say nonsense, with ketamine, one can just sit in someone's apartment and watch TV, "he said.
"I've seen people become addicted. This may not become a weekly or monthly thing, but something that people do every day after work or studies. People think that it is not addictive and they do it in a very blasante way without thinking about the negative effects. "
A 30-year-old man from Manchester, who has been taking ketamine for the last 13 years, said he had seen the quality of the ketamine supply decline in the UK. "About 10 years ago, you were never afraid it would be good […] but now you can be sold waste that does nothing. "
He said do not worry about any negative side effects. "The small sums I have made over the years do not really scare me," he said. "I worry a lot more about the amount of alcohol I drink, because I do it five or six nights a week."
Harry Sumnall, a professor of addiction at the Institute of Public Health at John Moores University in Liverpool, said that ketamine had become a drug used in clubs between the late 1990s and the middle or late half of the 2000s, but that it had elicited negative reactions around 2010 side effects, such as bladder damage, were announced. Sumnall said that, unlike the previous period, the growing popularity of ketamine did not seem to be tied to a particular music scene.
Martin Raithelhuber, expert on illicit synthetic drugs at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), said most of the recreational ketamine was produced in clandestine laboratories in Asian countries, especially in China. He added that it was clear that the recent crackdown by the Chinese government on ketamine production has pushed trade to neighboring countries.
Additional report by Brogan Maguire.
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