LONDON: The first time Barney Casserly used ketamine at a UK music festival he thought he had found “nirvana.” Five years later he died in agony, leaving behind devastated parents and friends.
“I would never, ever have imagined that this would happen to us as a family,” said his mother, Deborah Casserly, still grieving for Barney who died in April 2018, aged 21.
Ketamine, an affordable recreational drug that induces a sense of detachment from reality, has reached unprecedented levels of popularity among young people in the UK, with some experts even calling it an “epidemic.”
The extent of the crisis prompted the government in January to seek advice from an official advisory body on whether to reclassify ketamine as a Class A substance.
That would bring it in line with other drugs such as heroin, cocaine and ecstasy, meaning supplying ketamine could carry terms of up to life imprisonment.
In the consulting room of doctor Niall Campbell, a leading specialist in addiction treatment at Priory Hospital, Roehampton, Casserly, 64, showed pictures of her son — a smiling young man with dark hair and bright eyes.
Tearfully, she recalled how her son’s life fell apart as his ketamine addiction took hold.
Barney was just 16 when he went to the Reading music festival in southern England and used ketamine for the first time, writing about it in ecstatic terms in his journal.
But he swiftly became addicted to the drug, a white crystalline powder that is crushed and then sniffed. Alternatively it can be swallowed in liquid form.
“His usage moved from being used in a party context to being used at home alone... a tragic, sad, desperately lonely experience,” said his mother.
His family sent him to private rehabs but he relapsed, would use every day, and was in an “excruciating amount of pain.”
“He would spend long parts of the day in the bath, in hot water... because the cramps were so bad. He was not able to sleep properly at night because he was constantly getting up to urinate,” said his mother.
Barney suffered from ulcerative cystitis, also known as “ketamine bladder,” which is when “the breakdown products of ketamine basically cause the bladder to rot,” said Campbell.
“Mum, if this is living, I don’t want it,” said Barney on April 7, 2018. The next morning his mother found him dead in his bed.
An anaesthetic drug invented in 1962, ketamine is used for both human and veterinary medicine often as a horse tranquillizer.
“Some people love that dissociative, detached from reality, kind of effect” the drug brings, said Campbell.
Users “go right down into what we call a K hole, which is just to the point of collapsing and being unconscious.”
In the year ending March 2024, an estimated 269,000 people aged 16 to 59 had reported using ketamine, a government minister said.
And among young people aged 16-24 “the misuse of ketamine... has grown in the last decade” by 231 percent, said junior interior minister Diana Johnson, in her letter asking for advice from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.
There were 53 deaths in England and Wales in 2023, according to the Office for National Statistics.
“It’s really commonplace now, it’s everywhere,” said Laiden, a London drug dealer using an assumed name.
“It’s a cheap drug with a strong effect on people and people aren’t concerned about selling it to youngsters,” added Laiden.
Ketamine costs between £20 and £30 ($27.50 and $41) a gram while cocaine, which remains his top seller, is around £100 a gram, he said.
“This epidemic is having a huge effect on the nation,” said Campbell.
Ketamine is very addictive and “by the time they get to see us, the party’s over. They’re not out in the nightclubs. They’re sitting on their own at home, secretly doing this stuff, killing themselves,” he added.
But others argue that ketamine can have healing benefits.
Married therapists Lucy and Alex da Silva run a psychedelic therapy wellness center in London, and use ketamine prescribed by doctors in lozenge form to treat depression and trauma.
“We want people to see what the healing benefits of ketamine, when it’s controlled in the right way, can do,” said Lucy da Silva.
But she agreed there was “a need for education around the dangers of street ketamine and the lives that it’s taking.”
Ketamine ‘epidemic’ among UK youth raises alarm
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Ketamine ‘epidemic’ among UK youth raises alarm
- The first time Barney Casserly used ketamine at a UK music festival he thought he had found “nirvana“
Ukraine to give revised peace plans to US as Kyiv readies for more talks with its coalition partners
Ukraine to give revised peace plans to US as Kyiv readies for more talks with its coalition partners
- Ukraine’s European allies are backing Zelensky’s effort to ensure that any settlement is fair and deters future Russian attacks.
- The French government said Ukraine’s allies — dubbed the “Coalition of the Willing” — will discuss the negotiations Thursday by video
KYIV: Ukraine is expected to hand its latest peace proposals to US negotiators Wednesday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, a day ahead of his urgent talks with leaders and officials from about 30 other countries supporting Kyiv’s effort to end the war with Russia on acceptable terms.
As tension builds around US President Donald Trump’s push for a settlement and calls for an election in Ukraine, Zelensky said his country would be ready for such a vote within three months if partners can guarantee safe balloting during wartime and if its electoral law can be altered.
Washington’s goal of a swift compromise to stop the fighting that followed Russia’s all-out invasion in February 2022 is reducing Kyiv’s room for maneuvering. Zelensky is walking a tightrope between defending Ukrainian interests and showing Trump he is willing to make some compromises.
Ukraine’s European allies are backing Zelensky’s effort to ensure that any settlement is fair and deters future Russian attacks.
The French government said Ukraine’s allies — dubbed the “Coalition of the Willing” — will discuss the negotiations Thursday by video. Zelensky said it would include those countries’ leaders.
“We need to bring together 30 colleagues very quickly. And it’s not easy, but nevertheless we will do it,” he said late Tuesday.
Zelensky’s openness to an election was a response to comments by Trump in which he questioned Ukraine’s democracy and suggested the Ukrainian leader was using the war as an excuse not to stand before voters. Those comments echo similar remarks often made by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Zelensky told reporters late Tuesday he is “ready” for an election but would need help from the US and possibly Europe to ensure its security. He suggested Ukraine could be ready to hold balloting in 60 to 90 days if that proviso is met.
“To hold elections, two issues must be addressed: primarily, security — how to conduct them, how to do it under strikes, under missile attacks; and a question regarding our military — how they would vote,” Zelensky said.
“And the second issue is the legislative framework required to ensure the legitimacy of elections,” he said.
Previously, Zelensky had pointed out that a ballot can’t legally take place while martial law — imposed due to Russia’s invasion — is in place. He has also asked how a vote could happen when civilian areas of Ukraine are being bombarded by Russia and almost 20 percent of the country is under Moscow’s occupation.
Zelensky said he has asked lawmakers from his party to draw up legislative proposals allowing for an election while Ukraine is under martial law.
Ukrainians have on the whole supported Zelensky’s arguments, and have not clamored for an election. Under the law that is in force, Zelensky’s rule is legitimate.
Putin has repeatedly complained that Zelensky can’t legitimately negotiate a peace settlement because his five-year term that began in 2019 has expired.
US seeks closer ties with Russia
A new US national security strategy released Dec. 5 made it clear that Trump wants to improve Washington’s relationship with Moscow and “reestablish strategic stability with Russia.”
The document also portrays European allies as weak.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov praised Trump’s role in the Ukraine peace effort, saying in a speech to the upper house of parliament that Moscow appreciates his “commitment to dialogue.” Trump, Lavrov said, is “the only Western leader” who shows “an understanding of the reasons that made war in Ukraine inevitable.”
Trump’s peace efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands from Moscow and Kyiv.
The initial US proposal was heavily slanted toward Russia’s demands. To counter that, Zelensky has turned to his European supporters.
Zelensky met this week with the leaders of Britain, Germany and France in London, the heads of NATO and the European Union in Brussels, and then to Rome to meet the Italian premier and Pope Leo XIV.
Zelensky said three documents were being discussed with American and European partners — a 20-point framework document that is constantly changing, a document on security guarantees, and a document about Ukraine’s recovery.
Military aid for Ukraine declines
Europe’s support is uneven, however, and that has meant a decrease in military aid since the Trump administration this year cut off supplies to Kyiv unless they were paid for by other NATO countries.
Foreign military help for Ukraine fell sharply over the summer, and that trend continued through September and October, a German body that tracks international help for Ukraine said Wednesday.
Average annual aid, mostly provided by the US and Europe, was about 41.6 euros billion ($48.4 billion) between 2022–24. But so far this year Ukraine has received just 32.5 billion euros ($37.8 billion), the Kiel Institute said.
“If this slower pace continues in the remaining months (of the year), 2025 will become the year with the lowest level of new aid allocations” since the war began, it said.
This year, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden have substantially increased their help for Ukraine, while Germany nearly tripled its average monthly allocations and France and the UK both more than doubled their contributions, the Kiel Institute said.
On the other hand, it said, Spain recorded no new military aid for Kyiv in 2025 while Italy reduced its low contributions by 15 percent compared with 2022–2024.
