"The District Health Department’s ongoing crackdown against drugstores and stockists involved in sale of spurious, expired and illegal (unregistered) medicines has managed to control the illegal trade to a significant extent but the phenomenon could not be checked completely.
A survey conducted by ‘The News’ revealed that most common unregistered drugs found on sale in almost all markets of the country are being smuggled from India and China. Market sources informed ‘The News’ that a number of smuggled drugs of Indian origin are being brought into the country illegally through KSA and UAE.
Amazingly a good number of genuine drugs are also smuggled in the country mainly through the Karachi Port. Most of the German-based homeopathic medicines are being brought in from Germany illegally to save tax, said sources.
The market sources also informed ‘The News’ that fake, counterfeit drugs — copies of many imported drugs — are being prepared in Pakistan while some importers are getting the copies from India and China on order. Sources said that Karachi is the hub of illegal drug trade.
The most common smuggled drugs on sale include ‘Viagra’, a medicine used for sex purposes, Diclofenic Sodium (pain killers), Famotidine based medicine used for ulcerative problems, medicines for treatment of kidney related problems and multi-vitamins. “A multi-vitamin product namely Centrum, A to Z vitamins, has been doing extremely good business these days and it is being smuggled from India, KSA and Dubai,” said a senior drug dealer pleading anonymity.
To a query, he said that due to the ongoing crackdown against illegal drug dealers, most of the markets have been cleared from spurious, smuggled drugs in district Rawalpindi, however the illegal business is still existing at well known drugstores where the smuggled items are being sold as imported products.
“Drugs smuggling is quite easy as compared to other products as heavy quantity of it could be smuggled in through a small bag,” said District Health Officer Dr. Khalid Randhawa when contacted by ‘The News’.
He claimed that most of the markets have been cleared from smuggled drugs and added, “I can not however claim that we have eliminated the devilish business completely.” He said that the major problem the health department is facing in cases of business of smuggled and imported medicines is detection of supply chain. “In case, we manage to catch a smuggled drugs dealer, we find that he is just a smugglers’ agent, a Phery Baz and not the real culprit.”
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