RAWALPINDI: Pharmacies and drug stores in the city on Monday observed a token strike besides holding a protest rally against a proposed amendment to the Punjab Drug Act 1976.

From 1pm to 4pm, all the medical stores remained closed on the call of the Pakistan Chemist and Druggist Association.

After closing their shops, the drug store owners and their employees gathered at Rawalpindi Press Club and staged a protest demonstration. More than 100 participants, carrying placards, chanted slogans against the provincial government. Later, the protesters dispersed peacefully.

However, pharmacies remained open in all government hospitals.

Under the amendment, a chemist would be arrested if any spurious, substandard or expired drug was found in their store

“The token strike and the protest was the first step to stop the Punjab government from introducing laws which do not exist in Sindh, Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Azad Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan, Islamabad and even in any other part of the world,” Malik Arshad Awan, the president of Pakistan Chemist and Druggist Association’s Rawalpindi chapter, told Dawn.

He said the provincial government was going to introduce an amendment to the drug Act under which a chemist would be arrested if any spurious, substandard or expired drug was found in their shop.

He will not be able to obtain a bail for six months. He claimed that the manufacturers never left expired drugs with medical stores as they lifted such materials from the market before expiry.

“There is no substandard medicine available in any shop and the government knows it,” he added.

“In 2016, the government collected 68,000 samples from chemist shops across the province and only 27 of them were found spurious. Chemists and pharmaceutical industry are not involved in such a business but the government suspects all of them,” he claimed.

He said under the proposed amendment, the government was going to take action against chemists so that they could be forced to wind up their business.

“The chief minister is acting on the advice of some people who want to introduce their franchises in the province after shutting the business of local manufacturers and drug store owners,” he claimed.

On the other hand, the residents of the city criticised the token strike by the chemists and said after doctors it was now the turn of chemists to go on strikes, creating problems for the citizens.

“The government should strictly implement the law to apprehend all those found involved in selling spurious drugs playing with the lives of the citizens,” said Mohammad Qamar, a resident of Bohar Bazaar.

Irfan Raja, of Saddar, said he went to a chemist shop to purchase medicines for his ailing daughter but it was closed. He said he had to wait till the evening during which his daughter missed the medicines.

He said the government should streamline the affairs and provide medicines to patients at government hospitals and improve the quality of medicines by introducing stricter laws.

Published in Dawn February 7th, 2017