The Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN) has said it has embarked on regulation of controlled and psychotropic drugs, as well as identifying fake drugs through the planned electronic registration of manufactured and imported drugs.
The spate of insecurity across Nigeria and other vices have been blamed on easy access to psychotropic drugs by youth, who can easily pick these addictive drugs across the counter to abuse them even without prescription.
Chairman, Pharmacists Council of Nigeria, Prof. Ahmed Mora, told journalists in Kaduna on Monday during a one day sensitisation workshop to kick-start implementation of Pharmacist Consultant Cadre in Nigeria, that the electronic registration of pharmacies will ensure that drugs are regulated and addictive and psychotropic drugs become inaccessible without prescription, while drugs outside the system will be known as fake drugs.
“We have gone far in regulation of controlled drugs and pharmaceutical preparations containing addictive substances to ensure that they cannot be dispensed over the counter like that without prescription from a doctor and during the dispensing of this drugs, there is a poison disposal register.
“Pharmacists Council of Nigeria is working to ensure that all the outlets of pharmaceutical products, that is, the source of manufacturing and importation through wholesale to the retailers, that is community pharmacies and wholesale pharmacies are captured electronically.
“Once that is done, it will ensure that only properly manufactured and imported pharmaceutical products are distributed within the system. Anything outside the system is a fake drug. So, we are going electronic. We are going to ensure that, products that are not manufactured within licensed premises, imported by licensed importer and those that have addictive properties are properly distributed through the distribution channel electronically.
“Aside from codeine that we all know, there are other psychotropic substances that cannot just be dispensed over the counter because they have addictive tendencies. So, with this consultant cadre, more emphasis will be put on this to ensure these drugs are dispensed properly.”
