A conscript surnamed Tsao (曹) is suspected of smuggling more than 50 “zombie vapes” into a training center, in a case potentially involving several military personnel, the Hsinchu District Prosecutors’ Office said today.
The man serves in the 1st Battalion of the 109th Infantry Brigade and the incident occurred at a training center in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口).
Several other military members are suspected to be involved, leading to Hsinchu military police investigating and referring the case to the prosecutors’ office under drug-related charges.
Photo: Taipei Times
“Zombie vapes” are made from etomidate, a type of central nervous system depressant that can induce anesthesia.
Prosecutors did not reveal more details to the public, although it is understood that their request to detain Tsao was denied.
The 6th Army Command, of which the 109th brigade is a part, in a statement confirmed that Tsao was found with the vapes on Sunday during a security check, and that the case had been transferred to prosecutors for further investigation.
The army has a firm no-tolerance drug policy, and the unit would fully cooperate with the investigation and reinforce its anti-drug education program and policies, it said.
The case comes after Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) attended the Executive Yuan’s public security meeting on Monday, during which officials called out the dangers of new drugs such as etomidate.
The Food and Drug Administration is to meet tomorrow to discuss reclassifying etomidate as a Category II narcotic.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
RSS