In the years that I’ve been a social worker in St Helens and Liverpool, I have watched ketamine go from a marginal issue to defining feature of my work.
James Mawhinney is a Senior Social Worker in the Change Grow Live Liverpool and St Helens service. Having spent many years working with young people and adults affected by the region’s worsening ketamine crisis, he shares his insights – and explores what it can tell us about the future of drug use.
In supporting people to manage their use, I have encountered many unique stories. One that stands out to me was that of a teenage boy who told me he was giving ketamine away to his friends, for free.
When it comes to ketamine, I’ve learned that the consumer and the seller are often the same person. Like the boy that gave ketamine away for free, the incentive for dealing drugs may be friendship, not finance.
I’ve learned that people who use ketamine often do so to quiet the noise of a busy life, entangling the drug with anxiety, social pressures, trauma or neurodivergence.
My belief is that ketamine is more canary in the coalmine than crisis. Its complexity warrants more careful discussion than the panicked and alarmist snippets that news headlines allow.
It’s a glance at the future of drug use in our country: cheap, functional, unreliable, and moving through social groups too fast for healthcare services to keep up.
The question worth asking isn’t whether we’re alarmed enough; it’s whether we’re learning the right things while we still have time.
This is what I think ketamine reveals about the decades ahead.
Read James’ full post here
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