The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday cautioned the public against taking unknown instant beverage powder products from strangers after it found that more than 85 percent of such products tested by police authorities were laced with narcotics.
“None of the 45 samples sent by police in the past three months came from a familiar brand and it is presumed that they were confiscated in raids on nightclubs,” Division of Research and Analysis Director Cheng Hwei-fang (陳惠芳) said.
Chen said 39 of the powders, which ranged from coffee and milk tea to cereal, were found to contain illegal drugs, with 79.2 percent of them being tainted with class three drugs, including ketamine and mephedrone.
“Methylone was discovered in 27.8 percent of the drink powders, followed by mephedrone in 22.2 percent. Both substances are central nervous system stimulants and are categorized as class three drugs, as they can create similar effects to ecstasy and methamphetamine, as well as trigger potentially fatal side effects, such as an abnormally fast heart rate and high blood pressure,” Chen said.
Other discovered substances included the class two drug methylenedioxypyrovalerone, class three drugs nimetazepam and phenazepam, class four drug nitrazepam, as well as five types of smart drugs, including 5-methoxy-N-methyl-N-isopropyltryptamine and m-chlorophenylpiperazine.
The FDA that said the discovery suggested that drug dealers are using prepackaged instant drink powders as a new disguise for selling illegal narcotics.
One of the samples was found to contain six different drugs, it added.
“People are urged not to experiment with drugs out of curiosity or peer pressure. Those who have become addicted are encouraged to voluntarily ask for help from medical institutions designated by the Ministry of Health and Welfare in accordance with Article 21 of the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act (毒品危害防制條例),” the agency said.
In related news, the Consumers’ Foundation yesterday released the results of random tests on 51 kinds of traditional Chinese medicines it purchased from Chinese herbal medicine stores in Taipei and New Taipei City in September last year.
Pesticide residue was found in 21 samples, while the heavy metal cadmium was found in two.
The foundation urged people to rinse and immerse the medicines in clean water for about 15 to 20 minutes before consuming them, to minimize the amount of pesticide they might ingest.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching