The Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) has called for stricter penalties, including life imprisonment and potential death sentences, for those involved in the sale and distribution of fake drugs in Nigeria.
PSN President, Pharm. Ibrahim Tanko Ayuba who made the appeal on Thursday to the National Assembly during a press conference to announce the inauguration of the PSN President and new fellows of the PSN in Lagos, also commended NAFDAC for sanitizing the sector.
He said fake drug dealers are de facto murderers because anyone who tampers with life-savings commodities inherently sets out to kill ab initio.
Ayuba at the conference called on the National Assembly to urgently amend the existing Fake Drugs and Unwholesome Food Act to become a much more potent Act of parliament
According to him, apart from the dangers which Nigerians are familiar with in the case of fake drugs, the fake drink industry is also assuming a gargantuan crisis championed by modern-day merchants of death.
He noted that they are fully in support of what NAFDAC is doing. “NAFDAC is sanitizing the drug space. And if they succeed, and I want to believe they will succeed in sanitizing the drug market, everybody will smile and the drug space will be clean. We are working in the same goal. We commend the recent regulatory activities in leading to the enforcement of salient laws in some prominent drug markets in the South East and South West areas of the country.”