In the emergency wards of public hospitals, the arrival of such patients is increasing day by day. These patients are diagnosed with organ problems contracted by consumption of high potency drugs illegally manufactured with salts and chemicals of allopathic medicines.
As many as 9 drug courts are working in the Punjab to deal with the menace, but unfortunately the courts are handicapped due to ineffective legislation and inefficient drug testing laboratories, which are just three for all the province.
Under the Drug Act 1976, maximum punishment is 7 years imprisonment, but no accused has yet been punished with this sentence. Mostly Rs 500 or Rs 1000 fine is imposed on those, who are found guilty of being involved in the business of spurious drugs.
Sources said that only 4 per cent pharmaceutical companies in Pakistan manufacture medicine or raw material of medicines while rest of the 96 per cent import the raw material/medicine salts or they, in fact, are re-packing industries.
Medical experts revealed that the raw material of allopathic medicines, including salts and chemical were going in the hands of mafia groups, which remix several chemicals to make new allopathic medicines, herbal medicines and high potency health tonics that are unwholesome for human consumption. They were of the view that over a 1000 people expired per year owing to use of sub-standard or spurious drugs.
The term spurious drug is complex as some genuine drugs made by unregistered companies are also called spurious, while the bogus drugs which do not contain ingredients mentioned on label, also fall in the same ambit.Prof Dr Javed Akram, Principal Allama Iqbal Medical College/Jinnah Hospital told that spurious drug mafia had been spreading its tentacles, adding that bogus medicine and antibiotic were available in market. He maintained that the sale of bogus Augmentin which resembled original Augmentin was going on unchecked.
Dr Saeed Elahi, Chairman of Chief Minister’s Task Force on Spurious Drugs told this scribe that pharmaceutical companies imported raw material of allopathic medicine and some of this material slipped into the hand of mafia, which make bogus medicines. He opined that punishment for the offence of spurious drugs should be life imprisonment, adding that it was the job of the Federal government to make legislation to eliminate spurious drug business.
On the directives of Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif, notices were issued to 400 pharmaceutical companies while 80 companies were asked to submit affidavits that they would use allopathic raw material under legal limits. FIRs were also registered against 14 companies for violation.
Dr Saeed Elahi said that drug courts were ineffective, and mafia was taking benefit of the fragile laws. He said there was one drug testing lab in the City, “but with the efforts of the CM two labs in Multan and Pindi have been established. He informed that a man namely Zahid was arrested from Lohari two days ago. “He was a wholesale dealer of spurious drugs,” he maintained and added that wholesale dealers being end-retailers might be seized, but the mafia was scattered all over the Punjab. “The mafia cannot be traced as they work in dark and hidden places,” he concluded.
