Chandigarh: The Punjab Chemists Association on Sunday asked its member chemists across the state to stop selling pregabalin and other habit-forming prescription drugs, and to return their existing stocks to wholesalers and distributors.

Source: Indian Express via EuropeSays

Association general secretary G S Chawla said nearly 27,000 chemists linked to the association have been asked not to sell such drugs, and the association hopes the stock-return exercise will be complete by the end of the month. He said the decision was taken at a meeting on Wednesday and conveyed to members on Sunday, after genuine chemists faced intense raids over the last four to five days.

The move follows a crackdown on the illegal sale of pharmaceutical drugs in the aftermath of the alleged murder of anti-drug activist Parvinder Singh Jhota, allegedly by chemist Ashwani Kumar, in Mansa on October 13. The killing and the allegations around the sale of addictive medicines remain under investigation.

"No one is actually cracking down on the main culprits. They are not being raided. Two to four per cent of black sheep are there in every profession. But after the Mansa incident, all chemists are being treated as culprits," Chawla said, adding that for record mismatches "as small as four tablets to one strip", genuine chemists were staring at their medical stores being sealed. "Govt's 'Yudh Nashian Virudh' has in fact become 'Yudh Chemists Virudh'," he said.

Chawla said the move was aimed at the safety of member chemists, and appealed to the government to make such medicines available to patients through government facilities, Jan Aushadhi kendras and civil hospitals.

Association vice-president Sudarshan Chaudhary made a similar appeal in Ropar, saying licensed chemists face long record-keeping procedures for such medicines and yet are branded drug traffickers, the Tribune group's reporting said. He warned that patients — including those treated for mental-health and other conditions who need these medicines on a doctor's prescription — could face hardship if the medicines disappear from retail shops, and said the government should supply them through government shops or dispensaries.

Source: The Current Updates (Punjabi), quoting Tribune group reporting