By: Hassan Osman Kargbo
Streets trading in most part of the world are gradually becoming a thing of the past especially that has to do with drugs peddlers. And in the wake of digital and online marketing. Drug peddling among other things have negative consequences to humans.
Sierra Leone is on record as one of the countries with heaps of drug peddlers not only in the capital city, but also in the provinces.
Drug peddling in the capital, Freetown and parts of the provinces are almost becoming a norm, but by the look of things, it seems as if government’s law enforcement agencies and other relevant stakeholders are unable to bring durable solutions to this aging problem facing the city and its provincial headquarters towns.
As per mandates, the Pharmacy Board of Sierra Leone is charged with responsibility of regulating pharmacies, detect, confiscate and destroy fake drugs in the country.
The national regulator, Pharmacy Board was created by an Act of Parliament in 2001 for the profession of Pharmacy, control the drug supply, manufacture, storage, and the distribution and transportation of drugs, including nutritional agent and cosmetics in Sierra Leone.
Speaking to the FORUM NEWS SL, Sorie Sesay of Pharmacy Board of Sierra Leone disclosed that they don’t issue out license to drug peddlers on the street, citing the implications of trading fake drugs in any given state.
“Drug peddling is illegal in the country and it poses very big challenge to the health sector,” disclosed the Communications staff, Pharmacy Board of Sierra Leone.
According to research, medicine safety began in Sierra Leone in 2005, in December 2007, Sierra Leone was granted associate membership of the World Health Organization (WHO) International Safety Monitoring Programme, and the country gained full membership in September 2008.
One may be tempted to ask as what have the Board and its partners done in ensuring that drugs entering the country are standard.
Furthermore, it goes without saying that there are lot of substandard drugs across the country in the hands of drugs peddlers.
Most of the drug peddlers are uneducated and therefore can’t correctly prescribe medicines/medication to people, a situation that has led to the deaths and the ailments of so many people that could have otherwise been cured with the right prescription from trained and qualify pharmacists.
Investigation revealed that most of these mushroom pharmacies around town have deliberately refused to employ qualify pharmacists to enable them to prescribe the right drugs for the right purpose to the public.
Ironically, majority of pharmacies across the country employ quack pharmacists to prescribe random drugs to the public.
Another issue that has gain public annoyance in the capital and its environs is the ways and manners drug peddlers traded their commodities.
The used tape recorders, megaphones, or Bluetooth MP3 players during trading, which causes loud noise for citizens, especially hypertensive patients.
Public concerns have it that strategies being adopted by drug peddlers to market their products is becoming alarming associating their action to noise pollution.
Such complains among the public have intensify to an unbearable situation. An elderly man in the central part of Freetown, name witheld, bitterly complained about the level of sound blast from music sets.
The used of megaphones is very disturbing to us as old people and therefore called for regulations that will help to minimize if not abolish noise pollution by drug peddlers.
“I think it’s high time the law enforcement officers started to re-enforce the Public Order Act of 1965, with special reference to Section 3 which deals with noise pollution”, the elder said.
Section 3 of the Public Order Act stipulates that the enjoyment of a citizen should not disturb the peace of another citizen.
Drug peddlers have turned streets of Freetown as music studio where they could play any type of music at their own wish without any questions from authorities concerned.
Public outcry for a shift from the present way drug peddlers advertised their drugs and focused on the drugs itself seem gaining momentum across the capital city.
Concerns are that drugs peddlers are notorious for selling substandard drugs, which many citizens refer to as a menace that many are yearning for the Ministry of Health, and Sanitation, the Pharmacy Board of Sierra Leone and the municipality management of the Freetown City Council address the issue with utmost urgency.
Citizens have therefore called authorities in the specific sectors to mount an aggressive public campaign on education and basic information tips on substandard and counterfeit drugs and the looming dangers associated with drugs peddling.
For a durable solution to drug peddling, government should take the bull by it horn, if the government of Sierra Leone is serious to remedy the issue of drugs peddlers in the city.
