After shutting down stores across Punjab and surviving a suicide bomb attack on a protest held in front of Punjab Assembly Lahore earlier this month, Pakistan Chemist and Druggist Association (PCDA) finally decided to call off their strike upon surety from Law Minister Mr. Rana Sana Ullah Khan that the recent Punjab Drug Act 2017 will be revised with the consent of all stake holders.
Many handwritten notifications are floating on social media, claiming that negotiations were fruitful with the Punjab government. However, not a single signature of any government official was to found on these documents, putting a big question mark on their authenticity.
The Punjab Drugs (Amendment) Bill 2017 was introduced by Mr. Rana Sana Ullah Khan, Minister for Law & Parliamentary Affairs, last month in Punjab Assembly and was condemned by stakeholders. The bill is an amendment of the Drug Act 1976 which was introduced for the control and eradication of spurious, adulterated and substandard drugs.
The same kind of reaction was also observed when the Punjab Drug Act 2015 was introduced to deal with the menace of illegal drugs. The clause in Punjab Drug Act 2015 which proved to be an issue between PCDA and Punjab Government was:
Substandard and Spurious drugs were going to weighted by the authorities on the same scale.
Despite the rejection of this clause by PCDA, the same clause not only exists in the Punjab Drug Act 2017, it also carries a punishment and is proving to be a point of contention between the concerned parties.
Even though Punjab Drug Act 2015 & 2017 were passed by the Punjab Government in good faith, there are some points which are red flags for the stake holders.
For instance, in Punjab Drug Act 2015 the definition of Sub-standard drugs was omitted and the definition of Spurious drug was changed from
“which purports to be a drug but does not contain the active ingredient of that drug’’ to ‘’which purports to be a drug but does not contain the ingredients of the drug as per specifications’’
which is quite disturbing as in the eyes of the law, sub-standard drug & spurious drug is the same thing so their penalties are also identical.
In Punjab Drug Act 2017, the clause defining a sub-standard drug was included but the definition of spurious drugs was not reverted back to original. This is what has been keeping this whole fiasco going. The other prominent factors of this act are:
You can take a look at the Punjab Drug Act (2017) here.
PCDA & PPMA which are representation bodies of Pharmacies, chemist/medical stores & pharmaceutical manufacturers in Pakistan strongly opposed the Punjab Drug Act 2017 because they believe the government failed to address their reservations after 43 sittings with the Punjab government for the rectification of Drug Act 2015 and they have done it again in 2017 sweeping their valid concerns under the rug.
According to Malik Arshad Awan, the district president of PCDA the new amendments are very harsh and the government did not need to punish distributors and retailers in substandard drugs sale as they have nothing to do with the drug being substandard.
Even before the bill was presented in 2017, Mr. Hamid Raza, president of PPMA stated the same concerns in a talk show last year. While building his case, he stated that 800 legit pharmaceutical plants are catering to 90% of the medicinal needs of Pakistan. Only 35 countries’ pharmaceutical industries are well equipped to manage that much and Pakistan is a part of them.
Not only that, Pakistan’s medicines because of their quality and lowest rates are exported to 60 countries generating a lot of revenue for the country. Keeping all that benefits Pakistan pharmaceutical industry is giving, the government should support its industry to make it more grow instead of cuffing it within the laws which are not even as per international standards.
Merging spurious and substandard drugs is against international laws. Spurious drugs don’t contain the active ingredient which is claimed on the label while a substandard drug has that active ingredient but in a lesser amount than what’s claimed on the label. How could they be the same thing?
The Punjab government, after facing Cardiac Institute of Lahore scandals, which resulted in loss of precious lives caused by mixing up of antimalarial drug in blood pressure controlling medicines and un registered inferior quality of stents being used there, decided to go after whoever is involved in medicine business without any strategy.
Punjab government ruled out any conspiracy theories about damaging the pharma business and stated that the reason behind these amendments are none other than to identify and punish the black sheeps playing with people’s lives.
In recent tweets, the CM Punjab Mr. Shabaz Shareef has made it very clear that the amendment in Drug Act is meant to stop production of spurious drugs and mafia/drug cartels will not be allowed to wreak havoc on people’s lives. He also appealed to the public for their support in implementation of this bill.
Mr. Rana Sana Ullah told the house that the prime objective of the bill was to fix the loop holes in existing provisions of the law and enhance the punishments for people involved in offences related to spurious or substandard drugs.
In the efforts of plugging old loopholes, the Punjab government created new ones:
To resolve all these confusions and to save people’s lives the government and all the stake holders must come to an agreement. The bill has been already passed by the Punjab assembly on 2nd February 2017 after Mr. Ch. Amjad Ali Javed presented a report on the bill before the standing committee on health. Before the bill was approved, Punjab Government was supposed to work on the following ways out:
These amendments were somehow required. As human beings, we should be cognizant of the fact that businesses involving medical services should be no more a way of earning more money rather than a way of providing quality services. Stake holders and the government must know that the biggest stake holders are the patients. Both parties by keeping their egos in check must work collectively for the basic right of people which is access to quality medicine!