Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to help tackle the misuse of ketamine.

Tackling the harms caused by the use of illicit drugs is critical to delivering the Government’s key missions on safer streets and improving health outcomes, as well as contributing to the opportunity and national growth missions. We are taking an end-to-end approach to disrupt illicit drug supply chains, including working with law enforcement partners upstream and at the UK border to tackle the gangs responsible for drug trafficking.

Ketamine is a dangerous substance, which can cause irreversible bladder damage and in some cases death. Ministers are concerned about the harms ketamine causes and in January 2025 the Government asked the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) to provide an updated harms assessment of ketamine, and advice on reducing those harms, and in particular whether ketamine should be moved from Class B to Class A within the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. The ACMD carried out a public call for evidence in August and we expect to receive its report soon. We will then carefully consider its recommendations.

This activity sits as part of our work across Government to monitor and respond to emerging trends and harms, including those related to ketamine use. For example, on 16 October 2025 the Department for Health and Social Care launched a campaign to alert young people to the dangers of this drug.