Drug is a life-saving material. But consumption of drugs can be life threatening if misused or not properly used. So, as drugstores across the capital are selling addictive drugs without prescription, we have reasons to worry about the possible side effects of the drugs on the populace.

According to a front-page report published last Thursday in daily sun, many drugstores in the city are selling pethidine and morphine injections without any medical prescription to make a hefty profit. There is a clear embargo on the sale of pethidine and morphine by the government’s Drug Authority, unless prescribed by a registered physician. But the drugstores are selling the medicines whenever people ask for those. The sellers do not want to see prescription of physician before the handover of the drugs to buyers. Such practice of the drugstores has serious repercussions for public health. Health experts cautioned that this practice may result in an alarming rise of drug addiction among the youth. Moreover, a number of drugstores in different parts of the city have been found running advertisements promoting the sale of harmful drugs, which have only restrictive use for critical patients needing surgical treatment. These are complete violations of medical ethics. But the pertinent question is — what the authorities of Drug Administration who are responsible to check these are doing. The laws of the Drug Administration (DA) also seem to be inept to address the issue.

Constant monitoring of medicine markets is the need of the hour to stop this malpractice. However, the tendency to buy drugs without prescriptions has also grown among people as results of various problems prevailing in the health sector of the country. Here, on the one hand, doctors during their private practice charge exorbitant fees from patients; on the other, people have to face many hassles to visit doctors at government hospitals. This double whammy of visiting physicians often prompts patients to buy drugs by their own choice to heal themselves up. Many a time poor people seek suggestions from quacks or buy drugs from drugstores according to the advice of drug-sellers. Therefore, stopping the health-related bad habits of people such as buying drugs without doctors’ prescriptions will actually require the overall improvement of our health sector