Space oil drug a growing problem among youths in Hong Kong

HONG KONG – With a tap on their phones, teenagers in Hong Kong are using messaging apps to buy drugs that they inhale by way of vaping. 

Chris, a 19-year-old vocational student, told The Straits Times: “At the time, I thought I was just vaping.

“It was only afterwards that I found out it was called ‘space oil’.”

He was first introduced to space oil by a friend in January 2024. It sparked the beginning of a months-long downwards spiral into drug abuse.

“We’d usually pool our orders and buy a hundred capsules at a time through a dealer on WhatsApp,” said Chris, who wanted to be known only by his first name.

His account is one among hundreds of young Hong Kongers who have found themselves hooked on the new recreational drug.

The drug’s accessibility and affordability appeal to the youth, as dealers promote it on social media, communicate through messaging apps and make it easy for cash-strapped students to buy it in small amounts, social workers and experts told ST.

In recent months, videos have gone viral online showing teenage abusers copulating in public, passed out on trains and buses or staggering around in a trance while under the influence of the drug. One offender caught on film was only 13.

Space oil comes in capsules in a liquid form that can be inhaled through electronic cigarettes. In Singapore, they are more commonly known as kpods.

While the drug has no standard formula, it usually contains etomidate – a controlled anaesthetic – and is often mixed with other substances that help users relax or achieve a transient euphoric “high”. It may also be infused with flavoured and scented glycerin for a more pleasurable sensory effect.

Some versions include harder drugs like cannabis or ketamine for a stronger high.

As space oil became the city’s third-most-abused drug among users aged 21 and younger – after cannabis and cocaine in 2024 – the authorities decided to act. 

In February, the government listed space oil as a dangerous drug and banned four substances often used to make the narcotic – etomidate and its three chemically similar analogues metomidate, propoxate and isopropoxate. 

Those found consuming or in possession of the drugs face up to seven years’ jail and a HK$1 million (S$166,900) fine. Traffickers and manufacturers face life in jail and a HK$5 million fine.

Side effects of space oil include addiction, tremors, dizziness, memory loss, seizures, blackouts and even death.

In 2024, Hong Kong public hospitals treated more than 130 suspected space oil abusers, three of whom died. A quarter of the cases were aged under 18.

Users underestimate the effects

Soon after his first encounter with space oil in January 2024, Chris found himself vaping the substance several times a week “whenever I went out with my friends”.

“I’d get dizzy and wobbly, but would feel very carefree and easily amused. The girls with us would also be less inhibited and allow more physical contact,” he said.

But a reality check came quickly for Chris just half a year later, when a friend passed out on the streets after taking space oil.

“I started to think that space oil is quite dangerous,” he said. “The frequent vaping also began to feel increasingly meaningless, so I decided to quit.”

Space oil abusers tend to underestimate the effects the drug can have on them, said Mr Michael Ng, service supervisor at PS33 Shamshuipo Centre, a drug rehabilitation and counselling services provider run by non-governmental organisation Hong Kong Christian Service.

“Until space oil was banned in February, users didn’t even see it as a drug; they thought it was just vaping,” Mr Ng said.

But the problem is now so severe that where once PS33 rarely saw any drug abusers aged under 18, they now handle “as many as 30 such cases of young people who abuse only space oil”.

The government’s drug abuse registry had 300 documented space oil abusers at the end of 2024, three in four of them aged under 21. The actual number is likely to be much higher.

People abuse the narcotic for various reasons, Mr Ng said.

For some, the transient euphoria helps them feel less self-conscious. Others use it to cope with emotional problems. Still others see it as a cheaper, milder alternative to harder drugs like cocaine, that they may be trying to wean themselves from.

“It was the ‘feel’ that most attracted me to keep using space oil. I could let myself go, space out and fall straight asleep,” said one 13-year-old rehabilitated user who wanted to be known only as Ah Tung.

The secondary school student, who first tried the drug in August, would quickly go on to consume “two or three capsules of space oil a week”, which she would get from a “friend” on Instagram or WhatsApp for HK$1,000.

“I would either borrow the money from friends or steal it from my mum,” Ah Tung said.

Messaging apps abused as sales channels

Space oil dealers exploit popular messaging apps like Instagram, Telegram and WhatsApp, making it easy for youth to access these drugs, according to cyber-security expert Ronald Pong.

WeChat and Alipay’s e-payment systems have become channels for transactions, especially via the virtual red packet feature used for small payments, he said.

ST’s search on Instagram uncovered several user accounts blatantly advertising the sale of space oil in Cantonese.

“Youngsters are referred by their friends to dealers on all these apps,” said Mr Pong, chief executive of computer security service Nexusguard Consulting, who has looked into the online sale of space oil as part of his investigations into illicit e-payments.

Buyers and sellers usually chat on Telegram, where they are anonymous to one another, he told ST.

Buyers deemed genuine are redirected to a middleman, who provides a QR code for them to secure orders by transferring cash of not more than HK$1,000 each time using WeChat Pay or AliPay’s red packet function.

“The money leads to an underground bank run by syndicates that open e-banking accounts by renting, buying or stealing people’s information,” Mr Pong said.

Once payment is verified, the dealer dispatches a handler to deliver the drugs to the buyer within one or two hours. While the drugs are physically in Hong Kong, the sellers operate in Shenzhen or other mainland Chinese cities.

“There is a whole industry behind it that is very organised,” he said.

“They start small, offering youngsters these cheaper, ‘safer’ drugs as starter products, before encouraging them to upgrade to costlier, more harmful and addictive substances like ketamine or cocaine.

“Once they’re hooked, these youth are often then initiated into a life of more crime to keep up their drug habit,” he added.

Space oil central?

One area in Hong Kong that has recently found itself under the spotlight is Tin Shui Wai township in the north-western New Territories, where several viral videos of space oil users were filmed.

The incidents have led the authorities to post banners warning of the dangers of the drug across the city, and particularly around Tin Shui Wai.

“Space oil is a drug; it will not take you to space,” read one such banner in Cantonese at a light-rail train stop in the area.

While space oil abuse is a citywide problem, the issue may seem more visible in Tin Shui Wai, as it is home to many low-income cross-border families who live in cramped public housing flats scattered across the town, Mr Pong explained.

“Many of the youth in Tin Shui Wai are children of new immigrants from the mainland,” he said. “Their working-class parents have no time for them, they’re left alone to their own devices after school, and are hence particularly susceptible to falling into bad company.”

So far, efforts to tackle the problem show promise.

A government spokesman told ST that anti-space oil drug campaigns were held in schools in February. The police have since January also stepped up patrols using etomidate rapid test kits and enhanced intelligence-led anti-online drug trafficking operations.

Since the ban took effect in mid-February, the authorities had, as at early April, arrested 196 people and seized space oil drug items with a market value totalling approximately HK$3.2 million, the spokesman said.

Tackling the space oil problem among the youth needs to go beyond the superficial, PS33 social worker Kanas Kwok said.

Social workers work closely with their cases to address the root reason that drove them towards drugs.

“It requires a lot of dialogue,” Ms Kwok told ST. “To kick the drug habit, the space oil abusers must first feel that they themselves want the change, then the rehabilitation process will be more effective.”

Thirteen-year-old Ah Tung said she quit space oil after being “scolded and beaten by my parents”.

She added: “But it was also because I didn’t want to end up becoming a drug addict, or find myself viral online for being caught intoxicated on video like many others have.”

• Magdalene Fung is The Straits Times’ Hong Kong correspondent. She is a Singaporean who has spent about a decade living and working in Hong Kong.

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