Stepping up the drive to combat the increasing drug addiction among students, the Drugs Control Department in the district has imposed more curbs on wholesale dealers who supply psychotropic drugs. Restricting the cash-and-carry method of purchasing medicines, the department on Thursday asked the wholesale dealers not to supply tranquilliser drugs to retailers without valid address proofs.
Monthly report
The wholesale dealers will have to submit their sales report to the department from March, especially records of psychotropic drugs sold to various clients. So far, the submission of monthly report was applicable only to some of the major dealers in the sector.
Drugs Control Department officials, who conducted a meeting with around 25 leading wholesale dealers in the sector here on Thursday, said there were suspected incidents of securing huge quantity of psychotropic drugs from the dealers by unknown persons after producing bogus seals and addresses.
This illegal purchase could be controlled only by properly identifying retailers and the address of their shops, they said.
Popular drugs
“The trade of Nitrazepam, Alprazolam, Lorazepam and codeine-based drugs will be monitored very closely as these drugs have been found popular among drug addicts. The first step to fight the misuse is to restrict its unlawful supply by wholesalers to anonymous buyers or persons who pretend as authorised representative of retailers,” said Assistant Drugs Controller P.N. Jayan.
He said the drug inventory submitted by the wholesalers every month would be checked in detail to carry out further inspections in retail shops. Any suspicious increase in the purchase could be tracked easily using the inventory and it would also be a legally valid proof for the department to carry out enforcement actions, he added.
Surprise inspections
In the wake of noticing suspicious increase in the trade of tranquilliser drugs, the enforcement wing of the department had carried out surprise inspections in several retail shops in Kozhikode district.
It had also carried out searches and seized illegally stocked medicines under the ‘Clean Campus, Safe Campus’ project.
