Citation

Sinner WN. Gastrointest. Radiol. 1981; 6(4): 319-323.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1981, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

7308711

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.

Language: en