After tramadol, it’s alprazolam pills on sale in Amritsar market

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, October 8

The Health Department has miserably failed to monitor the illegal supply of sedative pills in the market. This has come to light yet again with the seizure of 1.8 lakh of intoxicants during the interrogation of a chemist, Naveen Gupta, by the Amritsar rural police.

Earlier, it was unchecked supply of tramadol tablets in the market that has raised many eyebrows. However, following the busting of an illegal tramadol manufacturing unit near Paonta Sahib by the rural police curtailed the supply of tramadol to some extent.

According to SSP, Amritsar rural, Gulneet Singh Khurana, the seizure of 1.8 lakh alprazolam tablets was made from Manish, aka Manu Mahajan, of MS Pharmaceutical located in Fateh Singh Colony. The police had arrested five persons in the racket involved in supplying intoxicants in the rural belt while one of their accomplices, Sunny Tarzen, was yet to be arrested.

“The huge supply of alprazolam has stunned us. This is the duty of the Health Department to look into it. When there was not a huge legal demand, why Health Department officials were not monitoring the illegal supply of the drug, which is being misused for drug addiction,” said an official privy to investigation.

The prices of boxes of tramadol and other sedative pills have shot up to double in the black market, which was earlier easily available at Rs 500 to Rs 600, he added.

However, officials of the Health Department say that they face a shortage of staff and therefore, faces problems in keeping a regular check. A drug inspector preferring not to be named said that the police have adequate staff and resources to nail the perpetrators and they helped. “Tramadol has almost vanished from the market and soon alprazolam would also come under the radar. After raiding tramadol dealers, addicts have started misusing alprazolam, which is anti-depressant,” he said. “We have only five drug inspectors who are managing court cases, sampling, replying and defending the cases in courts,” he said, adding that there was no clerk attached with them.

Alprazolam is used by a large number of patients as it is used by patients of high blood pressure. Now that its misuse has increased, it should be strictly sold on prescription and the government should formulate a policy similar to one for tramadol tablets and ban it, he added.

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