This Narcotic is Not the Cat’s Meow

Khat plant leaves

Miaomiao, pronounced Meow Meow, is an illicit drug made of cocaine and mephedrone, and is currently the most abused cathinone compound in Taiwan, as reported by an Epoch Times Taiwan news article. The US National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIH) defines cathinone as a substance found in the khat plant, a “shrub grown in East Africa and southern Arabia, where some people chew its leaves for their mild stimulant effects. Human-made versions of cathinone can be much stronger than the natural product and, in some cases, very dangerous.”

The news article reports that after taking the drug, one will have a sympathomimetic effect similar to amphetamines, causing palpitations, difficulty breathing, and increased blood pressure as well as triggering behaviors such as hallucinations, delusions, anxiety, depression, violence, or self-harm.

Synthetic cathinones, also known as bath salts, are human-made stimulants chemically related to cathinone. The NIH warns that “synthetic cathinones are part of a group of drugs that concern public health officials called new psychoactive substances (NPS). NPS are unregulated psychoactive mind-altering substances with no legitimate medical use and are made to copy the effects of controlled substances. They are introduced and reintroduced into the market in quick succession to dodge or hinder law enforcement efforts to address their manufacture and sale.”

Not only are people dodging law enforcement efforts by constantly changing the chemical structure of the drug, but underworld gangs are smuggling the drug through unusual methods. The news report mentioned earlier noted that five drug lords were arrested after the drug’s raw materials broke through customs in China.

The pioneer chemical raw material “2-iodine-methyl Propiophenone” of the third-level drug “Miaomiao” was announced to be listed as a fourth-level drug. However, the drug trafficking group actually used the head company to import 1 metric ton of the raw material from China to make miaomiao finished products and package them into poisonous coffee pods, with a market value of nearly 200 million yuan. (Over 30 million US dollars)

This capture was just a fraction of the 5 tons of illegal drugs seized by Taiwanese officials in its latest wave of anti-drug campaigns. According to statistics from Taiwan’s High Prosecutor’s Office that were reported in the news article, “a total of 4,580 kilograms of various drugs were seized in this project, and a total of 5,410 drug-related crimes were committed, including 2,784 people who manufactured, transported, and sold drugs, all of which were the most in any residential anti-drug project; drug traffickers using the Internet and new communication methods There were 1,091 people, and the proportion of seizures increased from 8% in the previous case to 20%.”

Technology used to help make this campaign a success included Raman spectroscopy, which can determine the composition of unknown materials in just seconds. This technology was used at customs and borders (and even by the Taiwan’s coast guard), to detect and deter dangerous substances before they could reach the public. The handheld Raman/FTIR instruments provide highly accurate results directly at the scene, enabling officers, customs agents, border patrol, and other personnel to scan substances in a single, definitive test.

These tools can scan through transparent/translucent containers, plastics bags, and bottles for most samples. This instrument easily identifies narcotics, stimulants, depressants, hallucinogens and analgesics. It can analyze key drugs of abuse as well as common cutting agents, precursors, and the emerging threats of fentanyl and the cathinones that we noted earlier — ensuring that Customs officials are always ahead of the curve.

The Taiwan officials also used the latest handheld chemical analysis technology that offers user configurable scan profiles and libraries, and tailors itself to an officer’s needs providing definitive results for confident and efficient decision making.

Years ago the phrase ‘the cat’s meow’ was used to describe something that was excellent or awesome. But this time the cat’s meow is the technology that can help keep miaomiao off the streets.

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