|
Newsbrief:
India
Narcs
Set
Off
Prescription
Drug
Panic
2/4/05
https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/373/india.shtml
Beginning Tuesday pharmaceutical
drug wholesalers and retailers in India have stopped taking shipments of
a wide variety of prescription drugs regulated under the Narcotic Drugs
and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS), according to reports in Hindu Business
and the India Times. Retailers organized in the All India Organization
of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD) say they will quit selling the drugs
to patients starting February 10. The move is, as Hindu Business
put it, the result of "the fear-psychosis spreading among chemists and
medicine retailers across the country" in the wake of raids on pharmacists
by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB).
A reinvigorated NCB is making
life miserable for drug wholesalers and retailers, complained AIOCD secretary
general JS Shinde. NCB narcs are raiding and arresting chemists and
pharmacists for minor record-keeping violations, and the Indian government
has failed to respond to repeated requests to discuss the matter, he said.
While the AIOCD recognizes the danger of abuse of the drugs in question,
Shinde said the government must find a better way than jailing pharmacists
and wholesalers.
Drugs affected include anti-depressants,
anti-psychotics, and anti-epileptics, as well as sedatives such as Valium
and narcotic pain relievers and total more than 400 formulations.
The AIOCD would like regulation of the drugs shifted from the illicit drug-oriented
NDPS to the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, which regulates prescription and non-prescription
medicines.
The loudly announced imminent
freeze on supplying prescriptions for the drugs in question may well be
a maneuver by the industry to pressure the government, but the threat of
no drugs is causing great anxiety both among those who use them and those
who manufacture them (thus the stories in the Indian business press).
Shortages are already developing, and people who are used to their Valium
are feeling anxious.
Will the Indian government
blink? Tune in next week.
-- END --
|
Issue #373
-- 2/4/05
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