I had no idea ketamine was a problem with kids

Isn't it a horse tranquilliser?! Who the fuck would want to take that....!

Give me weed any day.

Horrific article in The Guardian today (may have been posted already).

Children as young as 13 being referred to UK hospital suffering from ‘ketamine bladder’ | Drugs | The Guardian

I’m really @amylou8 .
It must be awful knowing you can do so little.

It's all across news channels, featured in soaps. Teens have been telling their personal stories and there's posters about. How people have missed it, or don't know about it, I don't know. But I do find this site not quite in touch with real life. It's been around for about ten years.
Google Ketamine warning posters. They're in doctors, leasure centers, libraries etc.
Ketamine and bombs are used from kids 10 and upwards.

Sounds like a Great British success story to me. Something we are actually good at.

Takes me back to the good old days of the opium wars.

Ket is actually exported from the UK where it's defacto legal to other European countries where it's more restricted after it arrives from being legitimately manufactured for export from India. This was on the radio last year

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002db8l?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

I doubt many 13 year olds are doing that. Its price is part of its appeal.

Unless you brew your own ...

It destroys your bladder. Then it destroys you. Parents need to get of the tiktok and start paying attention to what their kids are doing

Both Matthew Perry and The Vivienne were ketamine related deaths

They get it through social media and QR codes posted on lamp posts. Use is rife amongst young people. It’s cheaper than alcohol.

I read that 30 tons was consumed last year in the uk.

I had to google it as I thought it was a typo

True she died from hyponatraemia from drinking huge amounts of water in a short space of time. Coroner commented that the effects of the ecstasy likely contributed by reducing urination. Tbh any story that puts people off drugs is not a bad thing.

Interested to hear that ketamine is bought as a powder and snorted. I use it at work not infrequently (anaesthetist) and it comes in vials of liquid. It is extremely cheap and used in most developing countries for induction/maintenance of anaesthesia.

I was scared to take Es but did eventually dabble a bit at university. Never had one that actually did anything.

Well aren’t you pleasant? Personally I wasn’t there thinking about scientific literacy as a teenager at school learning about drugs. I watched the video and it did its intended job. I was afraid to take drugs. Can’t really say that was a bad thing. I still had fun.

Also, yes she died of a water overdose, but that was most certainly because she had took ecstasy. Ecstasy can make someone feel very thirsty for several reasons. It can raise body temperature and cause sweating, which causes some genuine fluid loss, while also causing a very dry mouth, which can feel like intense thirst. At the same time, ecstasy can increase a hormone called ADH, which tells the kidneys to retain water rather than getting rid of it through urine. Dancing and being in a hot environment can make the thirst even stronger. The danger is that someone may therefore keep drinking large amounts of water because they feel thirsty, while their body is actually retaining that water, causing the sodium in their blood to become dangerously diluted.

Not exactly rocket 🚀

Leah Betts died of a water overdose

The hysteria at the time rather hardened my views on scientific literacy, policy and peoples intelligence.

Even the ecstasy was safer back then though. More pure and less grams per pill. Now it’s all synthetic shit, mdma etc. Just awful. I know when cocaine had its day, plenty of people just couldn’t afford it. This horrible stuff is cheap.

I know it is a strong pain killer, horse tranquiliser and sold illegally for recreational use. Who is prescribing it for 12 year olds and why?

Start prosecuting social media companies for facilitating drug sales for a start.

I'd never heard of teenagers having ketamine addiction until yesterday. Sounds like it has some horrible effects.

I remember when it was all fields Es and raves that were the latest moral panic.

Thought Gen X were all going to be dead by the age of 40.

I watched that, Leah Betts video. Scared the life out of me, never touched a pill despite being offered plenty in my lifetime. Tbh, that video put me off all drugs tbh. I’m not one of those cool mumsnetters with a drug taking history. I was always offered them on nights out but I was never tempted.

I don’t know if heavy use is a regional thing? A lot of the stories and press I’ve seen has come specifically from NW England

I voted YANBU as it was covered extensively in the news (radio) including ketamine bladder and hospitals in some areas developing specialist services to deal with bladder issues (including surgical removal of the bladder and creating a stoma with bag for urine).
It’s very easy to take (e.g in the loos at school) and very very addictive.

I knew about ketamine bladder because I have a friend who works in the MH sector, but I don’t think most people/kids know how bad it can get. Sounds like we need a scary public information campaign? I saw one about ecstasy when I was about 11 (in the 90s) and it scared me so much I have never taken a pill in my life despite dabbling in other stuff. I know those campaigns don’t work on everyone but they did on me

There’s a lady local to me called Sarah Green who’s daughter Honor took her life due to Ket addiction. A very affluent and supportive family which shows that this drug does not discriminate
shes doing a lot of work raising awareness on the addiction to this drug and side effects. She has a charity called H23
i work in healthcare and ket addiction among young people is rife

I was into the raver scene for a little while in my late teens (am 46 now so quite a while ago). Did lots of different drugs but was never tempted by ketamine. I remember walking into a room at an after-party once and there were just piles of people drooling all over themselves. Looked very unappealing and I swerved it in favour of other options (probably equally unsafe but at least much more fun)

My daughter is 13. Massive rule follower and an athlete so very different to who I was at her age but I'm sure there's plenty of other options on offer at her school. It's really terrifying and quite sad too.

Yes, I’m aware of that.