ISLAMABAD, Dec 4: The district administration Monday amended the Drug Rules-1989 making it mandatory for the drugstore owners to employ pharmacists for selling drugs.

Secretary Quality Control Board Sardar Shabbir Ahmed told a meeting of the district administration officials that under the amended rules the condition of employing pharmacists had been enforced for the first time in Islamabad though it was a normal practice in many developed countries where only graduate pharmacists could issue drugs.

Mr. Ahmed told the meeting that the rules had been amended to check the sale of spurious drugs in the market. He invited suggestions from the general public to help the district administration curb the sale of spurious drugs in the capital.

The Supreme Court had recently directed the government to launch a countrywide crackdown on the sale of spurious drugs. The major amendment to the drug rules pertains to the categorisation of drugstores into A, B and C.

The owners of A category drug stores have to employ a full- time graduate pharmacist to sell all categories of drugs, while those of B category have to employ B-class pharmacists to sell drugs except tranquillisers and psychotropics.

The owners of C category have to employ a qualified dispenser to sell and handle Over-The-Counter (OTC) drugs.

“Some 20 A category drugstores have already employed graduate pharmacists and they have been allowed to deal with the drugs used for rehabilitation of drug addicts,” District Health Officer Fazl-e-Maula told this reporter. He said a total of 272 drugstores were being run in Islamabad - 70 by the wholesalers and 202 by the retailers.

The meeting decided to further tighten up the criteria for issuance of drug sale licences so that only qualified people could deal with the drug business.

The meeting was told that the Quality Control Board, Islamabad, had been made more functional and the number of technical experts was being increased to make it an effective advisory body.