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NMRA raids on pharmacies yield Rs. 3.6 million in fines
The Government earned Rs. 3.6 million in fines last year from pharmacies which sold or had in their possession banned, smuggled or abusive drugs, officials said.
Prosecution in magistrates’ courts following some 70 raids carried out by the National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA) across the country last year, the pharmacy owners paid Rs. 3,692,500 as fine. Some of these pharmacies were selling the pain killer drug Tremadol, a neropathic pain killer Pregabalin and the abortion drug Misoprostol. These pharmacies had dispensed around 241,764 tremadol tablets, 333 Pregablin and 15,312 Misoprostol in 2017.
They were charged with storing the drugs without licences, possessing, transporting and issuing drugs without prescription and other offences under the NMRA Act.
Chief Food and Drug Inspector Amith Perera said the NMRA conducted raids with the support of the Police, the Special Task Force, Police Narcotics Bureau, the Navy, the Excise Department, the Coastguards, the Customs and other law enforcement agencies. He said they carried out random checks on pharmacies and sent decoys to buy the banned drugs, while, in some instances, raids were carried out following complaints from the public. These pharmacies included those in Hulftsdorp, Wattala , Mahiyangana, Negombo, Matara, Kalmunai and Puttalam.
The offenders were slapped fines ranging Rs. 10,000 to Rs.300,000. In most of the cases, they were ordered to publish newspaper notices in all three languages, admitting the offence of issuing, possessing and storing of the abusive drugs and declaring that that they will not commit the offence again.