WITH its stunning sandy beaches, rolling hills and position on World Heritage Site the Jurassic Coast, the county of Dorset attracts around 16 million tourists every year.
But behind the picture-perfect image, a darker underbelly has emerged, as authorities fight back against the chilling ketamine ‘wave’ that is gripping Britain.
Nationally, the number of people seeking treatment for addiction to the horse-tranquilizer drug – also known as Special K or Vitamin K – has increased eight-fold since 2015, according to the Department of Health.
In Dorset, the problem has become so concerning that last year the county’s assistant coroner wrote to the Home Secretary over the “increasing number of young people presenting with potentially fatal health problems”.
It came as police statistics revealed that between 2020 and 2024, a total of 86 people, including children, were investigated for possessing, intending to supply or supplying ketamine in the region.
Now, the fightback has begun, with local authorities coming together to launch a campaign named Forget the Ket to highlight the physical and emotional toll of ketamine addiction.
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The campaign is supported by Dorset Council, BCP Council, Dorset Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) David Sidwick, and local support organizations like Clarity, Reach, and WithYou.
It’s also supported by reformed addicts, including Liv, from Bridport in Dorset, who said: “I had no tether on reality because I was so often living in psychedelic K-holes.”
K-holes are the term given to when Ket causes a feeling of euphoria and an out-of-body sensation.
Liv, who first tried drugs aged 11 but started taking harder drugs at university, said: “In just a few years, I went from being an A-star student to being in hospital every week for seizures and overdoses.
“The lowest of the low was an overdose where my dad and the paramedics had to do CPR on me for 40 minutes.
“I ended up in a coma on life support, and my dad was told to say goodbye to me.”
The highly addictive drug sees addicts trapped in a vicious cycle of abuse. It ravages the urinary tract – causing sometimes irreversible damage, known as ‘ketamine bladder’, which in severe cases means the bladder must be removed.
Just a stone’s throw away from the celebrity-heavy, affluent area of Sandbanks sits Dorset’s largest town, Bournemouth, where residents can’t seem to get away from the ket culture.
Jonathan Snape, 53, is a property renovator who has lived in Australia for 20 years and has spent three months back in his hometown, with its vibrant shopping streets, historical buildings and pretty gardens.
He said: “The drug scene her is phenomenal. Probably between about 12-3pm most days I’ve been offered everything from pot to crack, and I’ve been offered ketamine daily.
“The effects of ketamine on people’s lives are devastating. Why would anyone want to take horse tranquiliser?
“The level of violence I’ve seen here is crazy too. There are dealers fighting each other in the park, I’ve seen people threatening to stab each other with broken bottles. It’s just got insane here.
“It used to be that for six weeks every summer the town would fill with people from all over the country, but apart from that it was a very quiet town.
“I think the UK has got very soft. I don’t believe in guns, or using guns, but the fact the police in Australia carry them is a formidable deterrent. I feel sorry for the police here who only get a truncheon.
“If someone in Australia got caught carrying ketamine, or any drug, they’d spend 30 days in prison before it even went to court, but in the UK we just don’t send the same message.
“I remember Bournemouth as being such a lovely town, I don’t recognise it now and have no inclination to stay here; I’m going back to Australia as soon as I can.”
‘I see drug deals all the time’
Next door to Bournemouth is the suburb of Boscombe, which is home to some of the most deprived areas in the South West, with 43 per cent of children living in poverty.
Locals candidly admit it has a reputation as a drugs hotspot, and some have even taken matters into their own hands to save vulnerable addicts found on the street.
Bob Smith, 66, moved to Boscombe five years ago, having visited on holiday. It has its own beach, high street and shopping centre, which he says has changed drastically over the years.
He says drugs are so commonplace in Boscombe he even carries opiate antidote Naloxone in nasal spray form.
The former nurse said: “I see drugs deals happen all the time with a handshake. One puts their hand behind their back and passes the drugs to the other, who has his hand behind his back.
My dad was told to say goodbye to me
Liv
“One day I found a guy unconscious on the floor, so I got my naloxone out, gave him one spray up the nose and his eyes opened and he immediately woke up. He sat up and screamed and swore at me.
“They’re not happy to have the naloxone. They’ve paid money to get off their face, and now you’ve ruined it by giving them the antidote.
“We have a couple of street sex workers too, they walk up and down, charge people £3, do three or four jobs and spend £10 on a bag of heroin.
“There are crack pipes for sale in the shops here, not enough police and no street wardens to be seen. We used to see them walking about but not anymore.
“The naloxone works for opiates, but I know there’s a problem, especially in younger generations, with ket. It’s vile stuff, it’s so addictive, causes severe urinary tract problems and it will kill you.”
‘Ket is a problem’
Andrew Talbot, 56, is a founder of the homeless charity We Are Humans, based in Boscombe.
He said: “There’s been an increase in use and popularity of ket since I was younger. I do a lot of social work and and am seeing it more and more.
“Each drug has its own trait reaction. With ketamine there’s a ‘candlelight’ first and then madness, like they’re not entangled with the real world. We run charity festivals across Dorset and it’s certainly very popular with the young people.
“With ketamine, Blandford [a market town north-west of Bournemouth] has a particular problem.
“I’ve seen it more with the people there, I work with people in Blandford and they all highlight ket as a problem.
“I think it’s become more popular because it’s cheap and readily available, although why someone would want to take a horse tranquiliser is beyond me.”
‘Polydrug’ users sometimes mix the hallucinogenic drug, an anaesthetic, with methamphetamine, which is also increasing in popularity, Andy says.
“Lots of our service users have that addiction, lots of people do a mixture of drugs, but there’s no support,” he said.
“Why have we got people on the streets? We should be housing them and dealing with addictions.
“We should be bringing people back into society. The consequential costs to police, the health service, to us as taxpayers means supporting them to break their addiction and providing support is the better option.
I went from being an A-star student to being in hospital every week for seizures and overdoses
Liv
“The only real support here is We Are With You [an addiction rehabilitation centre in Bournemouth]. They do amazing work. I refer people to them, some with success, some with no effect.
“Last year I was in the park and saw two of our service users, who were predominantly drinkers, a male and a female, and after five minutes a mass of young males came and sat next to them.
“After about ten minutes, suddenly the two service users had both fallen off the bench, and overdosed.
“We called the paramedics. I don’t think they took anything, I think they were probably spiked that day.”
Tragic death
Ketamine was reclassified from a Class C to a Class B drug in 2014, though many forces and local authorities believe it should be reclassified as a Class A drug.
Dorset has certainly seen first-hand the devastating impact ket can have.
An inquest into the death of Gemma Weeks, 28, who was found dead at her home in Weymouth in January last year, heard she spent £500 a week on the narcotic, which costs between £10 and £30 per gram.
Gemma, originally from Devon, had been struggling with a ten-year habit, and the cause of her death was given as toxicity and bladder necrosis caused by the drug.
Coroner Brendan Allen wrote a Prevention of Future Deaths report to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper outlining his concerns about ketamine, which he said was “easily, widely and cheaply available”.
He added: “It is also highly addictive, with reports of usage notably increasing in young people.
“Ketamine’s classification as a Class B controlled drug may give an impression that the dangers associated with its use are reduced as compared with Class A drugs.
“There is little understanding of the risks and dangers of ketamine use amongst the age group that appear to be at most risk of starting to use the drug.”
Chief Superintendent Julie Howe, local policing commander for Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, urged locals to report any instances of illegal drug use on the Dorset Police website.
She said: “We fully recognise the detrimental impact drug-related activity has on members of our community and we continue to take proactive action with our partners to tackle this behaviour.
“We conduct regular hotspot patrols in the areas of Boscombe and Bournemouth town centre to provide a visible presence and reassure our local communities.
“We are increasing the number of officers in our neighbourhood teams as part of the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee and the hotspot patrols are also supported by the local authority’s Community Safety Accreditation Scheme (CSAS) officers as part of our multi-agency approach.
“We also recognise that tackling issues around drug use is not an issue that can be solved by policing alone. We work closely with our local partners to ensure those who need support are signposted to the relevant services as we work together to address areas of concern.
“We remain committed to taking robust action against those involved in the supply of illegal drugs and those committing drug-related offences. Through regional and local operations and investigations we have achieved significant disruptions to drug related activity in recent months.”
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