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.
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Sinner, W.N. The gastrointestinal tract as a vehicle for drug smuggling. Gastrointest Radiol 6, 319–323 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01890277
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01890277