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."