The gastrointestinal tract as a vehicle for drug smuggling
Generate an AI Snapshot to get a quick, structured summary of this paper.
A concise AI-generated summary of the paper will appear here once you click Generate AI Snapshot.
TL;DR
Four cases of attempts to smuggle narcotics by swallowing a large number of drug-filled foreign bodies (condoms and capsules) and hiding them from customs authorities in the gastrointestinal canal during transit are described.
Abstract
Four cases of attempts to smuggle narcotics (marijuana, heroin, and cocaine) by swallowing a large number of drug-filled foreign bodies (condoms and capsules) and hiding them from customs authorities in the gastrointestinal canal during transit are described. This is compared with a psychiatric patient who swallowed 48 Vicks Inhalers. Drug smuggling by swallowing condoms or capsules containing narcotics is now a worldwide ethical-legal problem. It also is of therapeutic and prognostic importance as this may lead to such emergencies as mechanical obstruction, rupture of the drug-containing foreign bodies, and life-threatening intoxication of the carrier.