Ketamine on Campus

The hidden consequences of decriminalising drugs 

There are many consequences to decriminalising drugs that Branson hasn't addressed in this Facebook video message, available here. He hasn't taken on board the hidden and complex drug problems taking place amongst students at universities across the country that won't be solved through a relaxation of law and regulations. Here's an excellent YouTube video interviewing an investigative journalist on the use and abuse of ketamine at universities. I'll be drawing on his journalistic research in this blog post.

1) Surely decriminalising being caught with drugs means you're normalising taking drugs which we know cause mental and physical health issues, temporary or permanent. This normalisation will create more peer pressure to participate in drug taking and it can take place more openly and prolifically because it's not unlawful and more socially acceptable. That makes life harder for those who don't wish to take drugs. And it will only increase the rate of drug induced mental health issues and illnesses, the very thing society claims it's trying to tackle and lower. 

2) Decriminalisation of drug possession mainly helps the drug pusher to openly walk around pushing drugs on to people. 

3) The rest of us will be on the receiving end of someone taking drugs who can behave erratically and we don't necessarily know why but it can be a problem we shouldn't have to deal with. On the one hand, there's warning about drinking alcohol yet on the other hand, we will allow drug use with no consequences. It also impacts on others socially, and can create an unsafe environment.  

4) Why is recreational drug use not compared to doping in sport? If, for example, students take drugs they can enhance their performance, be it study or taking on extra paid work to be wealthier in their own right compared to other students and after graduating. So, like doping, it gives them an unfair advantage over people like me who are clean living and just work and study hard but can't always compete against those who turn to drugs to give them an edge and make them superhuman. It's also unfair socially because they're using drugs to fit in, be popular, bond with others and form a clique of people they can tap into later when they need something, for work or in life. They can also let their guard down when they're high so appear more sociable than they naturally are which makes networking for work easier because their perception of danger is down. 

5) So much for sticking with your own age group of students at uni: most of them are high as a kite and have contact with drug dealers since 1st year Fresher's week. According to this journalist who researched drugs on campuses, students can be given a lighter with a number on it which they can ring to obtain drugs. WTF! 🤦‍♀️🙄😱 

Unless your ambition is to become a druggie, how does that help?! 

If it's so common that students are constantly dealing with drug fuelled parties, clubbing and coping with demanding drug dealers, then don't tell me that a lecturer can possibly intimidate or hold power over these students and oooh, they don't know how to cope with them. If they're confident they can take on a drug dealer then they can take on a lecturer if they wish. The problem isn't relationships with lecturers, it's the drugs that are made available to students through dangerous contacts. Drugs such as ecstasy and cannabis are student drugs. But, according to this journalist, ketamine is popular at Cambridge University (and I'm sure it's not the only university either). 

6) What about consent? Are students (or any one else) with drugs in their system even in their right minds to consent to anything? Or do they wake up and can't remember what they agreed to or what happened? Ketamine, for instance, is a date rape drug because it causes amnesia. It's also used by students recreationally. So all this consent diatribe is rather a waste of time if a student is voluntarily taking this drug, or any other. These consent problems are happening when they're around their own peer group, eg living in student accommodation and going to student parties, including student clubbing and pub haunts. Nothing to do with lecturers in the examples I've been researching. Universities are not tackling drug use in the 18-21 age group, if anything, they're becoming more lax. So that's ironic: the so-called advocacy organisation Universities UK and their member (individual) universities become draconian about normal flirting or more between sober adults in an uptight environment, best take away their right to decide for themselves and consent, yet they become lax about drug taking, that's just what happens, so be it if they choose to consent to drugs, even though drugs can kill the student. However, a relationship with a lecturer has basically zero chance of killing a student, therefore much safer. 

So why are Universities UK and individual universities safeguarding around that rather than drugs? There are multiple safety issues surrounding drugs, from severe temporary and permanent physical and mental health problems to a significantly higher risk of sexual abuse or worse.  

Tackle drug taking and possession on campus and student accommodation and most university problems will disappear. 

What is Ketamine? 

As we learn in the video, ketamine is a cheap (now class B in the UK) euphoric drug used in medicine for depression, pain management, and is a disassociative anaesthetic. Vets use it in high doses for horses to make them blackout and fall down so they can perform surgery on them. High doses of ketamine has the same effect on people, which is why it easily causes what's known as a K-hole effect. At a lower dose than that, it can relax people to the point of being 'spaced out'. Both horses and humans will become over-excitable and buzzy on lower doses, hence that amount is used recreationally but not on horses on whom you wish to perform surgery. It's not a freely available drug which is why it's often been stolen from vets and sold on by drug pushers. Now it is mostly imported from abroad. Its side effects are confusion, difficulty in concentrating, delirium, physical weakness, hallucination, seizures and many more and it can damage your kidneys and liver. It can kill. It's not a safe drug! 

Ketamine is responsible for the death of 41 students and, since 2013, ketamine is often involved in student deaths. Overall, one in ten who die from taking ketamine is a student. These stats are cited by the journalist in the video who gathered stats from the National Programme for Substance abuse at St George's Hospital, London. 

For comparison, in 1998 there were no deaths from ketamine now there are approximately thirty a year. 

There's even been a threefold increase over the past fifteen years of 16-24 year olds trying ketamine. 

It causes health damage. 

Why would we wish to decriminalise such a drug? And other ones.

The possible future impact of ketamine and drug legalisation on women

It was found in the USA that eleven million women who were raped were often drunk, drugged or purposely misusing class B drugs. 

How would decriminalisation of drugs help women? 

It'll impact negatively on them, irrespective of whether they take the drugs voluntarily or not, since spiking cases could rise once it's legal to be in possession of them. That'll make the 'Me Too' movement redundant because there won't be any sexual survivor stories, testimonies or cases because the women won't be able to remember what happened in the first place or who did what. And it makes a nonsense of the topic of consent, because: either the consent is meaningless if given under the influence of drink and drugs or a lack of consent is simply circumvented through physically weakening, amnesia inducing drug spiking. Hence, if drugs are involved, consent is impossible but sex isn't impossible. Freeing up consenting to drugs can only enable more non-consensual sex, and in particular, the worst cases of it: traumatic non-consensual sex while under the influence of strong, physically and mentally impairing substances. 

Universities are changing their attitude towards students taking drugs. They are going soft on their drug policy. It's now about harm reduction not punishment for using drugs. This is guided by 'Students for Sensible Drug Policy UK'. Pilot schemes are running. They explain how to take drugs safely eg have friends around, take small amounts to test what you can cope with. But this doesn't necessarily go smoothly and isn't always successful because the worst case came after this softly, softly approach. An 18 year old girl died from ketamine at Newcastle University. She was drinking around taking it. 

Hanna Head, from SSDP, said on a podcast that it was awful that Newcastle University, following the death of the student, condemned drug taking or being in possession of drugs as unlawful. 

Apparently it's all about informed choice. Exactly. So apply that thinking to everything!

Unfortunately, harm reduction wouldn't have helped this young 18 year old girl. It's simple: No possession of or taking of drugs at University is the best policy because drugs cause such serious health problems and even death that surely parents don't want their daughter or son to go to university and graduate with an addiction or worse still come out in a coffin.