The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is to review whether drug testing methods need to be updated, Minister of Health and Welfare Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) said today, following a rise in drug-impaired driving cases linked to the “zombie drug” etomidate.
Taiwan currently requires two different tests to both be positive before confirming drug use, but this standard may be outdated for emerging drugs, National Taiwan University Department of Forensic Medicine director Weng Te-i (翁德怡) said in a recent Facebook post.
Etomidate breaks down quickly in the body, with a half-life of only two to three hours, so delays in testing could affect the result, Weng said, suggesting lowering the detection threshold and updating testing methods to better reflect how these new drugs behave.
Photo: Taipei Times
Testing standards must align with current detection capabilities to ensure accuracy, but as new drugs emerge, testing methods must keep up, Shih told reporters outside the Legislative Yuan today.
Testing standards should evolve alongside capabilities and be reviewed when appropriate, he said, adding that the FDA has been instructed to assess whether testing should be revised.
Preventing drug-impaired driving cannot rely solely on the FDA; the tools police use on the front lines are crucial, FDA Deputy Director-General Wang Der-yuan (王德原) told a news conference today.
The FDA confirms testing after the fact, while police have rapid saliva test kits to conduct on-site screening during traffic stops, Wang said.
Current dual testing regulations require the initial and confirmatory test to use different methods, he said.
The confirmatory test must also use gas chromatography-mass spectrometry or liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry to ensure accuracy, he added.
As drug classification and usage levels influence administrative penalties or criminal referral, significantly impacting the person’s rights and freedom, the testing process must be extremely rigorous, he said.
Urine test thresholds are set based on instrument limits and expert-reviewed standards, but they can be adjusted, Wang said, adding that in judicial cases, authorities may use the lowest detectable concentration when necessary.
The FDA would convene meetings with experts and the Ministry of Justice to determine whether there is a need to revise the threshold, he said.
Etomidate was classified as a Category 4 controlled drug on Aug. 2, 2024, and as a Category 2 narcotic on Nov. 27, 2024.
Law enforcement detected the drug zero times in 2022, 22 times in 2023, 2,779 times in 2024 and 20,727 times last year, FDA data showed.
In January and February, the drug was already detected 3,768 times, statistics showed.
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