Rs46-lakh drugs meant for de-addiction centres seized
Tribune News Service
Ludhiana, August 27
Drugs worth Rs 46.4 lakh which are used by de-addiction centres and have to be directly supplied to them, were seized from a wholesale firm by the Health Department in Ludhiana on Monday.
Tablets of buprenorphine and buprenorphine plus nalexone worth Rs 46.4 lakh was seized from the premises of Vikas Bansal of m/s Oracle Lab at Chet Singh Nagar. A total of 1.6 lakh tablets were seized by the department.
Dinesh Gupta, Zonal Licensing Authority, said, “Buprenorphine and buprenorphine plus nalexone are used by drug de-addiction centres and manufacturers have to directly supply these to de-addiction centres. These drugs cannot be supplied to wholesale or retail chemists, but this wholesale firm was keeping these tablets in a huge quantity”.
He added that the firm owner failed to produce any sale and purchase record. The seized articles will be produced in the court on Tuesday and samples of the same would be sent to a laboratory in Kharar for testing for ascertaining the quality of the drugs. The manufacturer would be served a notice in this regard.
He said these drugs were used as a part of medical, social and psychological treatment programme for patients addicted to narcotic drugs. “These cannot be sold in the market openly and need to be administered under strict medical supervision. These are used to block the effects of opioids, especially in case of overdose. These are used in case of emergency overdose and combination of buprenorphine plus nalexone is used to prevent abuse. The consumption of these drugs without medical supervision can prove fatal and these are given only for in-house patients and that is the reason why these are directly supplied to de-addiction centres by manufacturers,” he added.
