An estimated 30,000 people in Taiwan are believed to use ketamine, and long-term use of the drug can damage the kidneys, bladder and the brain’s cognitive functions, a physician said yesterday.
Stephen Yang (楊緒棣), surgeon-in-chief at Buddhist Tzu Chi General Hospital’s Taipei Branch, said one of his patients — a man surnamed Chen in his early 30s — began taking ketamine several years ago to reduce work-related stress, but continued use resulted in serious bladder damage.
After a year of use, Chen found himself having to urinate as many as 43 times a day, while his urine became sticky and thick with traces of blood, while his bladder shrank and became fibrotic, Yang said.
Chen underwent three surgeries over the past few years, but he was not able to quit the drug, and now his kidneys and bladder are so seriously damaged that he needs to undergo dialysis three times a week and use a bladder catheter every day.
Yang said 387 people are being treated for ketamine addiction in 12 randomly sampled hospitals nationwide, indicating that about 30,000 people are engaged in ketamine abuse based on Food and Drug Administration data last year on the rate of ketamine abuse among people aged between 12 and 64.
The data shows the rate of ketamine abuse in recent years is between 0.27 percent and 0.54 percent, while drug abuse reports from hospitals showed that ketamine is the most popular illegal drug among people under 19 years old.
“About 3,000 people with ketamine addiction suffer from serious bladder damage, with about 50 of them undergoing bladder- removal surgery,” Yang said.
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
A relatively large earthquake may strike within the next two weeks, following a magnitude 5.2 temblor that shook Taitung County this morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. An earthquake struck at 8:18am today 10.2km west of Taitung County Hall in Taitung City at a relatively shallow depth of 6.5km, CWA data showed. The largest intensity of 4 was felt in Taitung and Pingtung counties, which received an alert notice, while areas north of Taichung did not feel any shaking, the CWA said. The earthquake was the result of the collision between the Philippine Plate and the Eurasian Plate, the agency said, adding
Snow fell in the mountainous areas of northern, central and eastern Taiwan in the early hours of yesterday, as cold air currents moved south. In the northern municipality of Taoyuan, snow started falling at about 6am in Fusing District (復興), district head Su Tso-hsi (蘇佐璽) said. By 10am, Lalashan National Forest Recreation Area, as well as Hualing (華陵), Sanguang (三光) and Gaoyi (高義) boroughs had seen snowfall, Su said. In central Taiwan, Shei-Pa National Park in Miaoli County and Hehuanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Nantou County saw snowfall of 5cm and 6cm respectively, by 10am, staff at the parks said. It began snowing
The 2025 Kaohsiung Wonderland–Winter Amusement Park event has teamed up with the Japanese manga series Chiikawa this year for its opening at Love River Bay yesterday, attracting more than 10,000 visitors, the city government said. Following the success of the “2024 Kaohsiung Wonderland” collaboration with a giant inflatable yellow duck installation designed by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, this year the Kaohsiung Tourism Bureau collaborated with Chiikawa by Japanese illustrator Nagano to present two giant inflatable characters. Two inflatable floats — the main character, Chiikwa, a white bear-like creature with round ears, and Hachiware, a white cat with a blue-tipped tail
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