FOI 582-2025 / May 2025 / Ketamine
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 582-2025
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 29th May 2025 as follows:
Under the Freedom of Information Act I would like to request the following information:
Statistics showing the number of people who have been arrested for possession of ketamine (class B) under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 in each of the last 5 calendar years.
Specific offences:
Possession of a Controlled Drug – Class B (Ketamine)
Possession of a Controlled Drug with Intent to Supply – Class B (Ketamine)
Supply or Offer to Supply a Controlled Drug – Class B (Ketamine)
Production or Cultivation of a Controlled Drug – Class B (Ketamine)
And for each of those categories, are you able to break down the numbers to separate offenders over 18s and under 18s.
Please find the Warwickshire Police response set out below.
Response: Please be advised that the requested information is not centrally recorded and is therefore not held in a readily retrievable format. The ‘Reason for Arrest’ details recorded on the Custody System is not specific enough to easily identify arrests relating to Ketamine. Therefore, in order to determine the requested information, it would be necessary to review the circumstances and potentially the associated investigation(s) for each and every arrest where the ‘Reason for Arrest’ is recorded as one of the following:
- Drugs – Possess Class B or C
- Drugs – Possession with Intent to Supply – Other than Class A
- Possession with intent to supply - Unspecified Drug
- Drugs – Concerned in Supplying Controlled Drug
- Drugs – Supplying Controlled Drug
- Drugs – Producing Controlled Drug
- Drugs – Possession of Controlled Drug
The business area has conducted a scoping exercise and advised that for the period 2020 to 2024 inclusive, there have been 2,124 arrests where the ‘Reason for Arrest’ contains at least one of the above descriptions. At an estimate of 5 minutes per record to review, this would equate to 177 hours of work. This would therefore exceed the amount to which we are legally required to respond, i.e., the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the ‘appropriate level’, as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004. For Police forces in the UK, the "appropriate limit" is up to 18 hours of work on one request.
In accordance with section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for this request.
Under Section 16 of the Act, I have a duty to provide advice and assistance on how to refine your request; however, in this instance, I am unable to suggest a way that you could reasonably pare down your request into one which could be handled within the fees limit.
As an alternative, I can advise that it may be possible to provide some information from the Crime Recording System, based on the following notifiable Home Office offences:
|
Home Office code |
Offence |
Act |
|
093/60 |
Production or being concerned in production of a controlled drug - Ketamine |
Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 Sec 2 |
|
093/66 |
Supplying or offering to supply a controlled drug - Ketamine |
Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 Sec 4(3) |
|
093/72 |
Ketamine (Special K or Club 'horse' drug) |
Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) Order 2009 |
|
093/78 |
Possession of a controlled drug with intent to supply - Ketamine |
Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 Sec5(3) |
|
093/84 |
Permitting premises to be used for unlawful purposes - Ketamine |
Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 Sec 8 |
For the specified period, it may be possible to provide the number of these offences recorded; however, to determine the number of individuals arrested in relation to each offence recorded, a manual review would be required, and this would involve cross-referencing with the custody system. Determining whether this could be achieved within the fees limit would be entirely dependent upon the number of records which would need to be reviewed on an individual basis for period requested. Therefore, should you wish to resubmit your request for the number of offences recorded and the number of arrests linked to these offences, please be mindful that there is a possibility that this may still exceed the fees limit. Further, in the event that information is retrievable, this would be subject to the usual disclosure considerations.
Every effort has been made to ensure that the information provided is as accurate as possible.
Your attention is drawn to the below which details your right of complaint.
Should you have any further enquiries concerning this matter, please write or email the Freedom of Information Unit quoting the reference number above.
Yours sincerely
Freedom of Information Officer
Freedom of Information Unit
Warwickshire Police
PO Box 4
Leek Wootton
Warwickshire
CV35 7QB