A report released on 28 August 2018, revealed the recent capture of six young men and women who confessed to taking the drug “K-Powder” in the lavatories of high-speed train G1726, traveling from Hankou to Shanghai Hongqiao.
The report, released by the Yangtze Evening Post, noted how passengers and workers on the train became suspicious of the group after they heard the click of lighters. Alarmed that pairs of girls were occupying the bathrooms for long periods of time, staff notified police.
After arriving in Nanjing South at 18:53, police, who had been waiting on the platform, boarded the carriage and immediately checked the young men and women, seizing that the Chinese Internet translates as K-Powder (ketamine), from a handbag.
The report states that the women could have been using a tin in order to burn the drugs while in the bathroom. After three women tested positive for K-Powder, they confessed to having just taken the drugs on the train.
The women, all born in the late 90s, hail from Hubei Province and have told police that they come from wealthy families. One girl has been detained for transporting drugs, while the other two are to be punished for use of controlled substances. The report does not mention what has become of the three men that were in their company.
In other related news, it has been reported that in China’s efforts to further crack down on drug use, the country has begun “analyising people’s sewage for contamination”, says Business Insider.
In an article by David Cyranoski for Nature Magazine, published 16 July 2018, “Officials have been chemically examining sewage for traces of drugs or metabolites — bodily substances created after the human body interacts with certain drugs — in people’s urine”.
Chinese Environmental Chemist Li Xiqing from Peking University in Beijing, who is involved in the operation told the magazine, “Zhongshan police have already used the technique to help track down and arrest a drug manufacturer. He says a handful of cities are planning to use data from waste water to set targets for police arrests of drug users, some as early as next year”, adding that the country is set to invest ￥10m in wastewater-based epidemiology by the end of the year.
