The Chinese Kuomintang and Taipei Mayor Jiang Wanan have criticized the Democratic Progressive Party's Taipei mayoral candidate Shen Boyang's drug prevention policy article published 12 years ago. Wu Xindai, a cardiovascular surgeon and candidate for the Hunan Port District Municipal Council in Taipei City, Taiwan, sternly refuted it. She criticized the Kuomintang for being full of crisis and indiscriminately attacking, and deliberately confusing three completely different concepts of medical care, pharmacology and law for political offense and defense. Their behavior was extremely shameful. Wu Xindai emphasized that using anti-intellectual methods to discredit the public health profession and educate its supporters will not help solve real social problems.
Wu Xindai pointed out from a medical professional perspective that at the legal level, drugs and controlled drugs for legal medical use are indeed regulated by the "Drug Harm Prevention Ordinance" and the "Controlled Drug Management Ordinance" respectively; but in terms of medical treatment and pharmacology, the drug abuse textbook of the Food and Drug Administration of the Ministry of Health and Welfare has already clearly stated that "controlled drugs and drugs are two sides of the same system." Substances with the same addictive or psychotropic effects are controlled drugs if they are used for legal medical treatment by doctors in accordance with regulations. If they are abused without medical purposes, they will enter drug control. He gave the example of "etomidate", which has caused the most headache to the Jiang Municipal Government recently. This substance was originally a legal medical drug used for the induction of general anesthesia and emergency intubation. However, when it was illegally added to e-cigarette oil and turned into a "zombie cartridge" and caused a drug-driving accident, the government gradually increased its control and will even be classified as a first-class drug in 2026. Wu Xindai asked Jiang Wanan whether etomidate is a medicine or a drug. It depends on whether the discussion is based on pharmacological substances, medical use or legal control. This is true professionalism.
In response to Jiang Wanan's question about "how to educate the next generation," Wu Xindai retorted that anti-drug education is by no means simply drawing a red line, nor is it telling children that drugs are okay. Real education should provide the next generation with a deep understanding that even if certain substances have medical uses, if there is no medical indication, the source and dosage are unknown, illegally obtained, or abused, they may cause serious physical harm and become legal drugs. She emphasized that only by establishing this concept can children truly understand why they cannot take drugs of unknown origin or smoke e-cigarettes, and also understand why narcotics in surgery rooms can become harmful cigarette cartridges on the streets.
Wu Xindai further explained that the anti-drug policy cannot be limited to "catch". Addicts need detoxification medical treatment, and young people exposed to drugs need early intervention from psychological, family and social support systems. In public health terms, these prevention measures are called harm reduction, treatment and recovery, and they in no way excuse drug use. She criticized the KMT for maliciously packaging "harm reduction," "addiction recovery," and "drug abuse" into glorifying drugs. It may be a useful slogan politically, but it is completely inconsistent with the actual operation of the medical scene.
Finally, Wu Xindai asked the Chiang City government, since Chiang Wanan claimed that drugs were a national security issue, and faced with the increasingly serious chaos of etomidate, e-cigarette drugs, and drug driving in Taipei City, how much budget and manpower did the city government increase in substantive resources such as screening, addiction treatment, Chunhui counseling, drug prevention personal management, and family support? Wu Xindai called on politicians to stop oversimplifying complex addiction medical issues in order to attack political opponents and gain political benefits, and should return to professionalism and pragmatically solve municipal and social problems.
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