Posted on: Sun 06-05-2018

Over the years, Community Pharmacists have been conducting public campaigns and raising awareness against drug abuse at all our National Conferences. ACPN has also drawn the attention of all State Governments, and all the regulatory agencies to the need to properly police the drug distribution chain.  We have always advocated for the closure of all illegal premises. The present states in which we find ourselves are rather unfortunate and call for a holistic approach to solving issues of drug abuse in Nigeria. Even before the BBC documentary, we have chosen as the theme of our National conference: MEDICINE ABUSE IN NIGERIA, A CALL TO ACTION FOR COMMUNITY PHARMACISTS.  I must say that most of our calls have always been ignored and it took a BBC documentary to push the Government to take action.  This action should be holistic in nature and we must avoid a fire brigade approach if we are to stamp out medicines abuse in Nigeria.

I will at this point say that decades of neglect of the distribution system has resulted in this sad abuse of Codeine containing cough syrup and other controlled medicines.

Our prayers to Government are;

(1)    Close all open drug market in the country

(2)    Closure of all illegal premises in the country starting with the city centers and non approved Patent and Proprietary Medicine Licence (PPML) in cities which already have enough Pharmacists.

(3)    All facilities dispensing prescription medicines or controlled medicines should have Pharmacists.

(4)    The National prescription policy must be reactivated

(5)    The Pharmaceutical Inspection Committees (PICs) in all the States of the Federation must be up and doing.

(6)    Government must support the Pharmacists’ Council of Nigeria (PCN) and National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) to carry out their statutory functions with a clear mandate to sanitize the drug distribution system in Nigeria.

(7)    PCN should track and trail all control medicines from manufacturers to the point of dispensing.

(8)    Full implementation of the National Drug Distribution Guideline (NDDG).   We need to see the action now to ensure that deadline of 1st January 2019 is met.

(9)    Public and private facilities that do not have Pharmacists in their employment should send their prescriptions to a community pharmacy for dispensing.

(10)The Pharmacists Council should be reconstituted for effective regulation of the pharmacy practice in Nigeria.

(11) Our streets should free of Street Medicines Hawkers and stiff penalties to be meted out to defaulters.

(12) Finally, the Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria (ACPN) is ready and will not hesitate to send any member to the disciplinary committee; we therefore call on Federal, State and Local Government to take drug matters seriously and to retain the exclusive legislative list.

Full implementation of the New Pharmacy Act and all the policies on controlled medicines will also go a long way in stopping the menace of medicine abuse, as codeine-containing cough syrups are just a segment of controlled medicines being abused.

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