Agency rapped over drugs importation

Agency rapped over drugs importation

Zakki Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government needs to reformulate procedures for the
importation of medical materials, psychotropic drugs and
narcotics to avoid excessive procurement that may lead to illegal
drug production and trafficking.

"An excessive amount of addictive drugs and materials was
legally imported last year under the approval of the Drugs and
Food Control Agency (BPOM), which is actually not authorized to
issue import approval documents (SPI) in the first place,"
Indonesian Health Consumer Empowerment Foundation Chair Marius
Widjajarta said at a media conference on Monday.

"Indonesia, for example, last year imported 3,500 grams of
morphine, although according to the International Narcotics
Control Board (INCB) in Vienna, Indonesia required only 1,500
grams," Marius said.

He said the head of BPOM was quite aware that BPOM was not
authorized to issue importation documents, as according to Law
No. 5/1997 on psychotropic drugs and Law No. 22/1997 on
narcotics, the Minister of Health has the sole authority to issue
such documents.

"The Minister of Health, who has the authority to approve the
import of drugs and materials, seems to be ignorant of the
problems that may rise from lax procedures," he said.

Marius said that besides the procedure violations, the absence
of adequate monitoring and evaluation had also contributed to the
high rate of drug abuse involving narcotics and psychotropics.

"The 2001 audit report of BPOM shows that the majority of
drug-related factories, pharmaceutical wholesalers and drugstores
did not impose adequate monitoring systems, while the government
only gave them warnings without taking any action against them,"
he said.

Poor monitoring, which widened the opportunity for illegal
production and trafficking of drugs, indicated that the
government was not serious about eradicating drug abuse, he said.

BPOM's Director for Narcotics, Psychotropic and other
Addictive Substance Control Al Bachri Husin said, "BPOM deals
with legally produced narcotics, which is not appealing to drug
addicts. Meanwhile, drug abusers take illegal drugs that are out
of BPOM's control."

"Every month BPOM reports to INCB all narcotics and
psychotropic that Indonesia imports. We are quite open for anyone
who wants to access our data," he said.

However, Bachri admitted that the head of BPOM signed import
documents under the coordination of the Minister of Health.