PESHAWAR, May 3: Illegal business of medicines is continuing unabated throughout the province in the wake of government failure to regulate the business.

Most of the medicine shops are being run by unqualified people, which has aggravated the drug-sale scenario in the province. The government apathy is clearly evident in the face of its inability to conduct the category B examinations in time and award drug-selling licences to the qualified people and regulate the sale of drugs.

The number of medical stores has been increasing in the city and elsewhere in the province, causing harm to the people. These unqualified people issue wrong drugs to the patients in the name of substitutes, which often cause harm to the patients than the benefit. But all such cases go unreported.

The government has appointed 17 drugs inspectors in the province, supposed to keep vigil on the drug sale, but they take bribe from the druggists and the people continue to suffer.

According to the Drug Act of 1967, pharmacy had been categorised as A, B and C. Additionally, it had been said that pharmacy schools would be established within two years of the implementation of the Act to provide basic training to the pharmacists concerning the sale of drugs.

Graduate pharmacists, assistant pharmacists and dispensers were placed in category A, B and C, respectively.

However, the Federal Health Department stopped registration of dispensers in category C in 1987, who, according to the Drug Act 1967, were qualified to appear in the Pharmacy B examinations after passing their one-year dispenser course from the NWFP Medical Faculty.

As the procedure goes, the qualifying candidates were registered as assistant pharmacists with the NWFP Pharmacy Council who were then issued licences and authorised to run medical stores.

The ban played havoc with the drug business in the province, as unqualified people began opening drug stores without any know-how of medicines. Secondly, it also deprived the fresh dispensers to get themselves registered in category C and appear in the category B examination in the next two years to be able to operate drug stores.

The reason behind the ban, the health authorities believe was to discourage quackery and illegal delivery of health services in the country, but it backfired. The ban had also caused problems for the dispensers, depriving them to get licences required for opening of drug stores.

In fact, the ban was placed on the issuance of category C certificates to dispensers because the graduate pharmacists did not recognise them as qualified assistant pharmacists.

Furthermore, the mushroom growth of the medical stores has also been triggered by the fact that the dispensers serving in the government hospitals and other government and non-government organisations surrendered their pharmacy B certificates to the medical store owners against an agreed upon amount which also angered the graduate pharmacists.

The ban on the new registration was mainly due to the hue and cry of the pharmacists who had also obtained a stay order from the court in their favour. Nevertheless, the graduate pharmacists also surrendered their licences to the unqualified persons like the dispensers and received a monthly amount from them.

Though the government had lifted ban on the registration of dispensers in category C in early 2,000, the process of conducting examination is painfully slow and the dispensers having passed the category B examination two years back are yet to be issued their certificates.