The dangers of 'space vapes'

Police are raising concerns as more people are using vapes laced with an illicit sedative.High Alert, New Zealand's early warning system for dangerous drugs, issued a warning over pods laced with the anaesthetic drug etomidate last year.The illicit vapes were often sold under names like space oil, k-pods, space vapes, or eto.Etomidate - an ingredient in some US lethal injections - can cause involuntary muscle jerking or twitching, loss of coordination, drowsiness, dizziness, confusion, hypoventilation, low blood pressure, and low heart rate.Police told RNZ the effects can be increased when used with other depressants like alcohol or opiods, and mixing them can lead to nausea, breathing problems, choking, losing consciousness, and even death.But it was not only etomidate found in space vapes. Drugs like ketamine, GBL and even methamphetamine had also been detected in the pods.Police have warned space vapes are readily available to some."Etomidate vapes are readily available in some drug using communities, but use is not as widespread as other drug markets," a spokesperson said.Reports on pricing varied, ranging from approximately $50 to $200 per vape/pod.Vaping etomitdate and other illicit substances was an emerging trend in New Zealand, police said, and while there had been an initial rapid rise in use, the size of the market remained relatively small."Misrepresentation or adulteration is a concern with the inability to visually distinguish between vapes containing illicit substances and other vapes, leading to unintentional consumption and harm," they said.Police said etomidate was being imported into the country and assembled into vape pods once here."Vape devices are visually indistinguishable from legal vapes, and the typical odours associated with illicit drug use are largely masked or eliminated during the vaping process," the said."This makes it challenging to identify. Police see the impacts that illicit drugs have on the wider community every day, and this is why Police have a strong focus on targeting organised crime groups that in many cases profit from this harm."'Bought on the blackmarket'The New Zealand Drug Foundation's Hayden Eastmond-Mein told RNZ space vapes were not coming through legitimate channels."Primarily when people have had these space vapes, they've been bought on the blackmarket, and mostly people have known that they're buying something other than nictoine," he said."That said, if people are buying vapes on the black or grey market, then there is a chance that they have other substances in there."Eastmond-Mein urged those who had bought vapes through those channels to get them tested."Vapes can be a little harder to test, but we do have some methods to test them, and we can at least have a harm reduction conversation about how you can stay safer as well," he said.A Ministry of Health spokesperson said etomidate had legitimate purposes and was sometimes used as an anaesthetic medicine in New Zealand."It remains strictly controlled and the new restrictions will not prevent its use in the hospital setting."Customs intelligence manager Jared Nicholson said they had made 12 seizures of etomidate comprising of 7.66 kilograms and 100 millilitres between January and May 2026.None of those seizures involved vapes or vape cartridges."Customs is seeing etomidate imports via air cargo and international mail that are identified as mainly originating from India and Malaysia," Nicholson said."However, it is important to note that country-of-origin information can arrive mislabelled or could be a transit port."Nicholson said Customs had intercepted components associated with the domestic manufacture of these products, most of which originated from parts of Asia.ABC has reported the similar products sold in Melbourne earlier this year.And in Taiwan, it was now punishable by death to sell, manufacture or transport etomidate, according to Taiwan Plus News.Last November, Health Minister Simeon Brown issued a temporary class drug order, treating etomidate as a Class C1 controlled drug due to the risk it posed to the community.That order expires in December.