Dr Peggy Chu, a consultant urologist at Tuen Mun hospital, first linked ketamine to bladder problems in 2006. Her pioneering research helped highlight the drug’s sometimes irreversible consequences.
Every week she sees patients whose bladders have been shrivelled because of ketamine, with some forced to wear incontinence pants.
“Currently it’s still not treatable. The only thing that works is to stop taking the ketamine,” she said, noting that while some people will regain full capacity other heavy users will not.
Ketamine’s other health effects also include shortness of breath, heart problems, cognitive impairment and mental problems.
Hong Kong security officials say ketamine is smuggled from the mainland in small quantities, likening the process to “ants moving home”. It can be carried in liquid form hidden, for example, in a contact lens bottle.
Last year police and customs seized 724 kilogrammes of the drug, recording 1,677 ketamine-related cases, a drop from 3,679 cases in 2009. Both seizures and cases far outnumbered those for heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine.
Ah-Wai, now 22, said he had lost all confidence before arriving at Shek Kwu Chau, but was now managing to rebuild his life. He is living in a half-way house, working with his father and hoping to become an electrician.
“I would tell any teenagers who wanted to try ketamine about my own experience,” he said. “I would tell them how much I lost in the past two years, and how much of a waste it was.”
About The Author
