The Ministry of Justice’s Institute of Forensic Science last week reported that the average age of victims in drug overdose cases involving new and emerging narcotics over the past five years was 29.
The prevalent use of illegal drugs among younger people presents a great threat to public security, the institute said.
Combating the use of emerging drugs is challenging because new types are constantly emerging, said Lin Tung-liang (林棟樑), head of the institute’s toxicology team.
Lin cited a report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in June identifying 790 types of recently emerged drugs.
Dealers in Taiwan typically hide illegal drugs in packets of instant coffee or in tea bags, Lin said, adding that the coffee packets and tea bags look identical to their legal equivalents.
Dealers usually differentiate their products by using keywords on the packaging like “three-in-one,” or “perfectly proportioned,” Lin said, adding that they are usually mixed with ketamine.
The institute said that 204 cases of drug-related deaths were reported between 2012 and 2016, of which 162 were male victims and 42 were female. The average age of the male victims was 29.6 years, while that of the female victims was 26.9 — with the overall average age across all cases being 29.
Among the cases in 2012, autopsies showed that the victims used 1.9 types of drugs on average, whereas victims among the cases in 2016 used an average of 4.1 types of drugs, indicating the troubling trend of users increasingly mixing several types of drugs, the report said.
The majority of drug-related deaths in the nation occur when users overdose at parties, Lin said.
From January to September this year, a total of 87 drug-related deaths have occurred, he said, adding that the annual total of drug-related deaths has been continually rising since 2012.
The institute is to hold a special exhibition at the National Museum of Natural Science next month to educate elementary and junior-high students about the dangers of drugs, institute director Tu Ta-jen (涂達人) said.
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