Thailand says giant drug bust wasn’t

BANGKOK — Thailand’s claim to have seized almost $1 billion in contraband ketamine this month was wrong and tests have so far not shown up any drugs, the justice minister said Tuesday.

Somsak Thepsuthin said tests that turned purple in the presence of ketamine hydrochloride reacted the same to trisodium phosphate – a chemical that can be used as a food additive and cleaning agent which is all that had been found so far.

“This was a misunderstanding that our agency must accept,” he told reporters. “This wasn’t a mistake. It’s new knowledge.”

He said testing continued. Some 66 of 475 bags had been tested by Sunday.

Thailand’s Office of the Narcotics Control Board had announced the seizure on Nov. 12 and said that it pointed to a multinational drug network.

In medicine, ketamine is used as an anesthetic or an anti-depressant, but as a recreational drug, it is used to induce dreamy or trance-like sensations, and sometimes hallucinations.