No Evidence of Devil’s Breath Drug That Turns People Into Zombies in Europe

According to recent media reports, the drug, which rapidly disorientates a person, removing the ability to reason, has been used in France and Britain to commit robberies and sexual assaults. The Telegraph earlier reported that two Chinese women and a man had been arrested in Paris on suspicion of using Devil’s Breath to commit a crime.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — There has been no evidence of the dangerous drug scopolamine, also known as Devil’s Breath, being used in Europe to date, European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addition (EMCDDA) told Sputnik on Tuesday.

"No detections of scopolamine have been reported to the EU EWS [Early Warning System] by the 28 Member States, Turkey and Norway, as of yet," Rachel Christie from the Action on New Drugs Unit at EMCDDA said.

Scopolamine has a number of uses in medicine and is marketed as orally administered tablets, transdermal patches, and intravenous solutions. The drug is thought to be extracted from a South American tree.

The UK government has issued a travel warning to those traveling to Colombia, in which it claims that the British Embassy has received reports of criminals in Colombia using drugs, including scopolamine, to subdue their victims.

Christie explained that EMCDDA plays a central role in Europe’s response to new psychoactive substances, and its main task is to operate the EU Early Warning System and Europol to undertake risk assessments of new substances, as necessary.