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Home Team officers developed correctional programme for etomidate abusers in a few months

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In short

Rolled out in November 2025, the 10-session correctional curriculum enrolled 67 participants by October 1, 2026, to assist their recovery and future planning. The development team was recognised alongside 103 other award recipients at a ceremony celebrating high-impact contributions across Singapore's Home Team agencies. Other honorees included teams handling prolonged industrial firefighting, autonomous drone innovation, and multinational cybercrime crackdowns. Senior Minister K. Shanmugam underscored that expanding technological capabilities, including doubling the national surveillance camera footprint, remains pivotal to supporting these enforcement efforts.

Key points

  • The Home Team rapidly mobilized tailored psychological interventions to curb emerging dru…: The Home Team rapidly mobilized tailored psychological interventions to curb emerging drug trends involving anaesthetic-laced vapes.
  • Operational awards celebrated cross-disciplinary achievements spanning rehabilitation, au…: Operational awards celebrated cross-disciplinary achievements spanning rehabilitation, autonomous technology, emergency response, and cross-border cyber investigations.
  • Singapore plans to expand its network of over 100,000 police surveillance cameras to more…: Singapore plans to expand its network of over 100,000 police surveillance cameras to more than 200,000 by the mid-2030s.

Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1

- Home Team officers won 104 awards for major operations and projects. Shanmugam said technology, including PolCam and ERP 2 data, helps police act faster and stay ahead of criminals.

- Sarah Lavinia Joseph helped create psychological-based correctional programmes for Etomidate abusers after Kpod became a drug issue. By Oct 1, 2026, 67 abusers had joined the programme.

- Awards also recognised frontline work in fire and cybercrime cases. Officers handled a 36-hour blaze at 201 Keppel Road, while Operation Cyber Guardian 2025 led to 435 arrests across six jurisdictions.

AI generated

SINGAPORE – In just a few months, Home Team psychologist Sarah Lavinia Joseph and her team managed to develop and implement a correctional programme for etomidate abusers, as the number of such cases shot up in 2025.

That was the year the abuse of vapes laced with the powerful anaesthetic, which are called Kpods, became a crisis in Singapore.

Following the classification of etomidate as a Class C controlled drug in Sept 1, 2025, Joseph and her team got to work on the programme on a short deadline.

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