A man in Zhanjiang, Guangdong Province added western medicine to his herbal tea. Is this a crime?

Guangdong locals are familiar with herbal tea, a Chinese herbal medicine drink. Generally, herbal tea mainly has the functions of clearing away heat and toxic materials and treating colds and coughs. So herbal tea shops can be seen selling all kinds of herbal tea with therapeutic functions everywhere in Guangdong, but have you ever thought that some lawless elements secretly add some western medicine ingredients to herbal tea in order to improve its therapeutic effect?

Recently, the People's Procuratorate of Mazhang District, Zhanjiang City, Guangdong Province, prosecuted a local man for adding western medicine ingredients to herbal tea for treating colds, which has been suspected of producing and selling toxic harmful food.

According to the trial related to the case disclosed by the People's Procuratorate of Mazhang District, Zhanjiang City, this year, in order to increase the sales of herbal tea, Luo privately purchased western medicine items such as dexamethasone and erythromycin, ground them into powder and mixed them into herbal tea for public sale. After a lapse of more than a month, the local market supervision department entrusted relevant testing companies to conduct chemical sampling tests on the finished products of herbal tea shops operated by Luo. The test results show that the herbal tea sold contains excessive western medicine ingredients.

After the incident, the suspect also admitted his criminal facts and voluntarily surrendered himself to the police. To this end, according to relevant laws and regulations, Luo was sentenced to 6 months in prison.

In order to increase the sales of herbal tea, Luo even mixed western medicine and other ingredients into related herbal tea products without authorization. According to the current laws and regulations of our country, his behavior has violated the Food Safety Law, and he must resort to criminal cases to investigate his responsibility. In this case, the suspect did not illegally add drugs in accordance with the relevant clear operating norms. Once the dosage is too large or the medication time is too long, it will easily cause a series of adverse reactions to the user's body and even lead to death. Therefore, market supervision departments should vigorously crack down on these illegal business practices.