Young people have been pilloried as Generation Ket, but this week it’s clear that the devastating ketamine epidemic has got a grip on older age groups, too.
Last month, I wrote in The Mail about how the drug had ruined the lives of many young adults around me – some of whom were forced to wear nappies because their addiction caused incontinence after their bladders shrank to the size of a thimble.
Among 16- to 24-year-olds, use of ketamine has increased by 231 per cent in the last 12 years and is now at its highest level since 2006, when records began.
But it is not just teenagers and twenty-somethings who are caught in this vicious cycle at the hands of a drug many refer to – only half-jokingly – as ‘regretamine’.
A new report claims the problem now runs much deeper. On Monday, a Home Office project based on an analysis of waste water in England estimated that around 1,008 milligrams of the class-B drug were consumed per 1,000 people every day between January and April last year, compared with 545 milligrams per 1,000 people over the same period in 2023. This represents an alarming 85 per cent increase.
The ketamine scourge is leaving a trail of death among all age groups and wreaking devastating harm on our society at large as many users fail to realise that their drug use could have fatal consequences.
This week we learned that Ru Paul’s Drag Race star The Vivienne died from a cardiac arrest after taking the drug. James Lee Williams, 32, who won the first series of the show as The Vivienne in 2019, passed away at their home in Cheshire in January.
The Drag Race star had spoken about their battle with drug addiction during the series, saying: ‘It was just a habit that caught on a bit too quick and a bit too hard.
The Vivienne, real name James Lee Williams, during a photo call for Dancing On Ice 2023. The Drag Race star died in January 2025 from a cardiac arrest caused by a ketamine overdose
Ketamine – referred to jokingly as ‘regretamine’ – can lead to incontinence, kidney failure and bladder shrinkage, as well as memory loss, lack of muscle control, psychosis, depression and multiple cardiovascular effects
‘I had to be kicked out of my house and told that I was going to be dead by the time I was 30 to actually go: ‘Right I need to sort this out’.’
At the time, the star was praised for raising awareness of the terrible effects of drug abuse. Now Williams’s manager Simon Jones says: ‘We hope that by us releasing this information, we can raise awareness about the dangers of ongoing ketamine usage.’
Known colloquially as ‘Ket’, ‘K’, ‘Special K’, or ‘Calvin Klein’ (a reference to a cocktail of ketamine and cocaine), its popularity has soared due to its low price, easy availability and a dangerous and undeserved reputation for being relatively safe.
But the truth is that use can not only lead to incontinence, kidney failure and bladder shrinkage, but also memory loss, lack of muscle control, psychosis, depression and multiple cardiovascular effects.
I have seen close and clever friends become addicted to a drug that they didn’t realise would ruin their bodies; school peers struggling with debilitating cramps, consumed by anxiety and pouring all their pocket money into their habit.
One, Eva, told me she thought it would calm her mind when the stress of schoolwork, friendships and university applications threatened to overwhelm her.
She began using ketamine regularly and quickly became dependent on it: ‘I was taking it before class, in the toilets, the library – lots of us were doing it, so I thought it was normal,’ she said. ‘What I didn’t realise was when they got home to their bedrooms they stopped.’ But Eva didn’t.
The Covid lockdown only made the problem worse for many – confused and lonely fellow 18-year-olds turned to ketamine for something to do during those long months locked in their bedrooms, not realising the dangers – thinking it was akin to vaping.
But eight years on from the first time she tried ket, Eva is incontinent and in nappies.
Despite the dangers, the drug is so ubiquitous these days that when celebrities are papped stumbling out of nightclubs and into cabs, with a telltale residue of white powder dusting their nostrils, it’s likely to be ketamine rather than coke.
So it’s no surprise to hear that The Vivienne is not the first high profile death attributable to ket abuse in recent years.
The death of Friends actor Matthew Perry at the age of 54 in 2023 resulted from the ‘acute effects’ of ketamine and the opioid buprenorphine.
‘Perry sought treatment for depression and anxiety and went to a local clinic where he became addicted to intravenous ketamine,’ Anne Milgram, the head of the US federal Drug Enforcement Administration, explained after his death.
Extraordinary as it may seem, US doctors have for years been prescribing ‘micro-doses’ of ketamine for pain relief, often in the form of nasal sprays. It is also a legal treatment for depression.
Meanwhile, many celebrities there have openly espoused the use of the drug recreationally. Billionaire Tesla founder and ‘First Buddy’ Elon Musk insists that ‘a small amount once every other week’ has helped get him ‘out of a negative frame of mind’, fuelling the idea that it is somehow a safe treatment for mental health.
Former One Direction singer Liam Payne was also reportedly taking the drug before falling to his death from a balcony in Buenos Aires last October.
Ketamine is one of the cocktail of drugs that make up ‘pink cocaine’, the drug that was later found in Payne’s system, the others being ecstasy, meth and crack.
Clearly the dangers of ket go far beyond my generation – and now I fear we will struggle to contain them. Seizures of illicit ketamine in the US grew by 350 per cent between 2017 and 2022.
Due to its ‘celebrity status’ and reputation for offering an escape from the stresses and strains of our daily existence, the drug has quietly woven its way into the fabric of contemporary life, leaving a trail of physical, mental and financial devastation in its wake.
From the rave scene to suburban sitting rooms, what was once seen as a harmless, trendy high is now at the centre of a sinister epidemic, with long-term effects that we are only beginning to understand.
How many more tragic fatalities will it require before we realise that to take ketamine is to dice with death?
