The Coast Guard Administration yesterday said it seized 7.46kg of the Category 3 drug etomidate smuggled from China.
The amount could be used to make 85,000 vials of “zombie vapes” for e-cigarettes, the Miaoli Reconnaissance Brigade of the coast guard’s Investigation Branch said.
“Zombie vapes” containing the short-lived anesthetic cause uncontrollable shaking, and loss of cognitive function and bodily control in the user, brigade Deputy Captain Hsu Li-chuan (徐麗娟) said, adding that the drug began circulating in Taiwan last year.
Photo courtesy of the Coast Guard Administration Investigation Branch
The shipment was intercepted and prevented from reaching the streets, Hsu added.
The brigade received a tip-off about the shipment a few days ago and built a task force with the Keelung Second Investigation Branch to investigate, she said.
During raids in Miaoli County’s Jhunan Township (竹南) and New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋), investigators seized more than 7kg of etomidate, 72 e-cigarettes and 4,970 vials of vaping cartridges containing the drug, the brigade said.
Officials arrested two people suspected of smuggling the drug, a 40-year-old surnamed Hsieh (謝) and a 41-year-old surnamed Yeh (葉) living in Jhunan, it said.
The pair held large quantities of etomidate in a Banciao warehouse and were arrested while apparently attempting to smuggle the tainted e-cigarettes, it said.
In a separate case from mid-July, a man surnamed Huang (黃) was arrested for crashing into a police car at high speed, killing an officer and injuring another.
Huang had admitted to using the “zombie drug.”
The Executive Yuan classified etomidate as a Category 3 drug on Aug. 5.
Additional reporting by Tsai Cheng-min
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its