QUETTA: Secretary, Quality Control Authority of the Provincial Health Department disclosed that more than 80 per cent medicine sold in Balochistan are suspected to be sub-standard and spurious calling for stronger action defending the lives of the people, including the ailing humanity.

For the past 70 years, the quality medicine sector remained ignored by the vested interests and officials in league with the thugs, cheats and drug Mafia in minting billion in this nefarious business. The officials cannot present a single instance that a drug deal was arrested and punished in any court of law for the past several decades for selling spurious and unregistered medicine.

An onlooker will be stunned when finding a row of medical stores in hundreds around the Civil Hospital, Quetta. What attracted them to start the drug business and open a medical store next to the already one.

It was the windfall profit and huge money in selling spurious medicine or drugs from unregistered and unknown factories and labs. A sizable number of the chemists and druggists were found in business of fake medicine or smuggled from India and Iran to earn money in millions and not in thousands.

The Punjab Health Minister personally led a team of officials and conducted raids at the suspected places and labs where the unregistered and spurious medicine were manufactured, packed and sold in the market.

In a single row, he sealed more than a dozen factories, labs where unregistered drugs were manufactured. He conducted all those raids in the surroundings of Lahore in Central Punjab and closed those factories involved in business of spurious medicine.

There must of hundreds of such illegal factories and labs preparing medicine and thus playing with the life of the people in which of Pakistan, particularly in Balochistan. The Government of Balochistan also assigns such a task to its officials to perform the similar service to the community and the people as a whole.

There are no two opinions on this issue as thousands of medical stores and druggists are involved in patronizing the unregistered labs and factories by selling their illicit products in their outlets with the charm to earn thousand times more profit. The Chemists and druggists should not be allowed to buy products from vendors, mostly unknown or with dubious characters selling medicines to them. License of such shops should be cancelled immediately and the owner is arrested and punished under the law for selling spurious medicine.

Each and every medical store should be scanned and screened so that they are informed about the deterrent punishment for selling spurious medicine. The people, in general, should come to the help of the civil administration in all parts of Balochistan identifying the people and place where illicit medicine and spurious drugs are manufactured secretly or with the connivance of officials, including police and Levies.

People generally hope that the newly formed drug court will come to the right expectations of the broad masses in awarding deterrent punishment to the criminals found guilty of preparing, selling and marketing spurious and sub-standard medicine. All those criminals who had established factories and labs and found preparing illicit drugs and medicine should remain in jail for his whole and all his property and assets impounded by the State.

It is a very good news that the Quality Control Authority in Balochistan had already referred dozens of criminal cases to the Drug Court for hearing on fast track so that justice is done to those criminals, if found guilty. According to one report, more than 30 such cases had been referred and many more are on the pipeline ensuring that the illicit drug business is crushed and closed for ever with deterrent punishment to the guilty.

The Chief Minister and the Minister for Health should take personal interest in this campaign ensuring supply of quality drug to the people. It is more relevant for the people that the Government hospitals should provide quality medicine to the patients visiting those Government facilities in the major hospitals in Quetta or elsewhere in the remote corners of Balochistan.

The Government should ensure that it will not purchase sub-standard/spurious and low quality medicine from unfamiliar companies and labs. It will ensure supply of quality drugs in all the Government hospitals all over Balochistan defending the life of the innocent patients.