The Mexican Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks (Cofepris) alerted young people this Wednesday to the risk that comes with a challenge that has gone viral on social networks and consists of ingesting sleep medications such as clonazepam.
The game, calledwhoever falls asleep last wins”, consists of consuming controlled drugs that induce sleep and trying to hold on to suspense for as long as possible.
“The inappropriate consumption, without medical supervision and irresponsible of drugs with anxiolytic properties such as clonazepam, has side effects that range from drowsiness, dizziness and nausea to loss of balance, coordination problems, headache, muscle or joint pain.”, Cofepris said in a statement.
Other possible symptoms, the agency continued, are blurred vision, tremors, incontinence or urinary retention, increased saliva, difficulty thinking or remembering, respiratory problems and, combining anxiolytics with other drugs, can cause coma.
“Therefore, Cofepris urges parents, guardians, caregivers and teachers to advise on the serious risks to health due to the use and consumption of controlled substances. Likewise, it invites girls, boys and adolescents to avoid disseminating and participating in challenges that put their lives at risk”, he recommended.
Cofepris also drew attention to the points of sale where clonazepam is sold without a prescription, since it is not allowed.
During this January, Mexico registered more than twenty cases of young people intoxicated by putting this challenge into practice, commonly carried out on the TikTok platform.
According to local media reports, three of them occurred in the northern state of Nuevo León, nine in the eastern state of Veracruz, and about a dozen in Mexico City.
The last registered cases occurred last Monday at a clandestine party held in Itzacalco, a mayor’s office in the Mexican capital, in which four young people who mixed anxiolytics with alcoholic beverages had to receive attention from the emergency services.
The Mexican authorities identified in 2022 around 500 incidents involving minors derived from this type of challenge.
Source: EFE
Source: Gestion
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