Drug vendors show mixed feelings over raids
Drug vendors show mixed feelings over raids
By Emmy Fitri
JAKARTA (JP): Pharmaceutical vendors were critical in
responding to reports of investigations launched by Jakarta
Police and the Food and Drugs Control Agency (BPOM) into the
distribution of fake drugs in the busy Pramuka and Senen markets.
"Other operation? We have heard about too many operations. If
we really sell fake medicines, they should have closed our
businesses long ago, but we are still running our shops," Liana,
who owns the Mei drug store on the first floor of the Pramuka
market, told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.
Liana said cheaper prices probably caused people to keep
returning to the market even if the medicines were fake.
"It's the buyers who name the prescriptions and pay the price.
We don't offer them one brand or another," she said.
The customers of pharmaceuticals sold in Pasar Pramuka are
mostly wholesale traders who then sell the drugs in other
locations.
The distribution of fake medicines has raised concerns in the
capital. A well known weekly magazine recently alleged that one
in three medicines distributed to the public was fake.
Other vendors said that they did not intend to sell fake drugs
but they did not know which of them were fake or not. They said
that they usually obtained the drugs from agents or sales
representatives working for the many pharmaceutical companies.
"We know that it is unlawful to sell fake products. Why should
we jeopardize our earnings by doing so," Rahman, one of the
traders in Pramuka market, East Jakarta, told The Post.
He added that, if police and BPOM had the equipment to examine
whether the drugs were fake or not, they should investigate the
manufacturers and not the traders who just sold the products and
were not equipped to detect fake medicines.
"If I had the equipment to check whether or not the medicines
are fake, I would gladly do that before selling them to the
public," he said.
Rahman, who opened his business three years ago, sells various
drugs, including antibiotics and contraceptive pills.
"The contraceptive pills I sell are surplus products not used
by puskesmas (public health clinics) in several villages in
Sukabumi, West Java," he said.
The 53-year-old vendor said he received other drugs from
pharmaceutical company representatives.
"Almost all of the traders here take the drugs from those
people," he said.
His colleague said she heard about the operation to crack down
on fake medicines and believed that the effort would disappear as
time went by.
Another vendor in Senen market, who did not wish to be named,
also played down the planned campaign, saying, "the police know
what we sell, they often come here but do nothing."
He also said that several military personnel and police
officers were sometimes asked to accompany the drug suppliers
when transporting the medicines from outside Jakarta to the
market.
"It's true, the suppliers bring the medicines on trucks and
they need escorts like private security guards. They pay military
personnel and police for their services," he said, adding that
traders also often use them for guarding their shops.
"Mine is just a stall. There is no need to be guarded, but I
have a lot of friends in the military who are always ready to
help, even if I get detained by the police or trantib (the
municipality's civilian security guards)," he said confidently.
Rahman, who owns a kiosk in Pramuka market, also acknowledged
that he paid military personnel to, "guard my kiosk at night and
help me deal with police."