Chonburi police and health officials raided two Pattaya pharmacies for illegally selling cough syrup used by teens to make a deadly narcotic elixir.
Provincial Police Region 2 and Chonburi Public Health Department pharmacist Ratikorn Prasertthai swooped down on Siam Country Drug on Soi Siam Country Club and nearby Yindee Pharmacy Feb. 1. Authorities arrested Siam Country clerk Chutikarn Chaiyachet, 35, and owner Nattarat Niyompaisansuk, 31; and Yindee clerk Jittiphan Kelakaew, 26.
The raids came after police responded to complaints that teenagers were using a Banglamung house as a drug den. There police found only Manop Preampree, 19, and 50 bottles of cough syrup containing diphenhydramine hydrochloride.
Manop was not arrested, as the generic Benedryl drugs are not illegal and police did not find the other components of the illegal “4×100” or “korth water” the teen allegedly was selling.
Manop told police he previously had been arrested for selling the mixture of cough syrup, cola and either kratom or pain reliever Tramadol, but stopped. The drops in his bedroom were leftover stock, he maintained.
Manop did admit where he bought all the cough medicine, however.
While selling cough syrup to teens is not illegal, authorities did shut down the pharmacies for lacking proper licenses for the drugs and having no licensed pharmacist on duty.
Chutikarn and Jittiphan additionally were charged with performing pharmacist work without a pharmacist’s license.
Thai teens increasingly are grinding up packs of 20 500-mg. tablets Tramadol, a potent pain reliever, and mixing them with 60 ml. of liquid cough syrup and diluting it with up to four liters of soda water or Coca-Cola. When Tramadol – not a controlled substance in Thailand unlike the west – is not available, naturally grown kratom is used.
The jugs of so-called 4×100 or korth water supposedly gives a euphoric high. But it also leads to liver and kidney failure, seizures, depression, addiction and even death.
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