Taiwan Premier says recreational drugs 'root of all evil' amid crackdown

台灣行政院長在打擊行動中稱娛樂性毒品是“萬惡之源”

Prosecutors confiscate 650 kg of marijuana in three months, 50,000 'coffee bags'


TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) said drugs are the root of all evil on Tuesday (June 13), as prosecutors announced the results of a recent crackdown on the production, sale, and use of illegal recreational drugs that targeted marijuana specifically.

The past three months have seen 32 successful prosecutions and the confiscation of over six tons of illegal drugs, including nearly 50,000 "coffee bags" (believed to mainly contain synthetic cathinones, sometimes known as bath salts) and around 650 kilograms of marijuana, Taiwan’s high prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday.

Speaking about the enforcement action, Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) said drugs are the root of all evil, per CNA. He said marijuana use and the emergence of mephedrone (commonly known as meow meow) in recent years has made young people vulnerable to temptation.

Taiwan’s government has invested NT$25 billion (US$820 million) since 2017 in stamping out recreational drug use and drug-use harm reduction, Chen said. The prosecutor’s office said that its investigations had focused on marijuana specifically, and it had arrested 178 people for growing and selling the drug, and 160 for using it.

In total, 1,448 people involved in the distribution of illegal drugs were arrested, along with 1,475 drug users. 19 drug distribution groups involving 32 people were also reportedly uncovered.

56 manufacturing locations were shut down, and over NT$30 million in cash was seized, prosecutors said.

Marijuana is illegal in Taiwan, and the manufacturing, transporting, or selling it is punishable by up to lifetime imprisonment by law. In Taiwan, it is in the same class as fentanyl and methamphetamine.