It's unacceptable

Some people had a hard time in Chittagong yesterday. In need of important drugs, they hopped from one place to another but found no pharmacy open. The Chemist and Druggist Association kept the medicine stores in Chittagong city and the upazilas shut from dawn to 2:00pm protesting arrests and legal action against 12 of their members. They were demanding that the cases be withdrawn and association members be freed.

Police arrested the 12, owners and staff of pharmacies, after a mobile court was attacked while looking for illegal drugs on the city's KC Dey Road on Tuesday.

It seems that mobile courts are attacked when there is a demolition drive against illegal structures. They are attacked when they are trying to remove illegal billboards and during their anti-adulteration drives too.

Last Thursday powerful people attacked a mobile court in Lake City area during a drive against illegal establishments.

Mobile courts are empowered by law to protect the rights of citizens. But their drives are made to look controversial. The association leaders formed a human chain in front of the Chittagong Press Club on Thursday to do just that.

They made allegations of "harassment" by the law enforcers during the mobile court drive. Then they came up with some fallacious statements.

They asked why no action was taken against doctors who prescribe illegal food supplements and Indian drugs. They argued if the medicines were not taken out of government hospitals by the staff then the pharmacies would not store and sell them.

They alleged pharmaceutical companies were marketing physicians' samples to "evade tax". If the companies did not supply the samples to the pharmacies then they would not stock and sell them.

They said food supplements and Indian drugs are brought through the borders. So if those were not allowed to enter the country, the pharmacy owners would not have stocked them. And if the doctors did not prescribe those, the pharmacy owners would not stock any.

It seems it was all others' faults and their members were simply "innocent!"

So now, one may ask, don't they know stocking physicians' sample for sale is illegal? Don't they know selling government hospital drugs is illegal and a punishable offence? Don't they know stocking unauthorised food supplements and foreign drugs is illegal?

So if the pharmacy owners are fined for egregious breaking of law, then how can they feel they are being treated unjustly?

Unauthorised drugs and food supplements enter the country but that cannot be the rationale to sell them. Can they then also stock and sell Phensedyl as well?

Some doctors may prescribe unauthorised food supplements but the pharmacy owners should know better about their legal status. Theirs is an invalid argument for selling these illegal products.

Would the hospital staff allegedly misappropriate government drugs if the pharmacy owners did not buy them cheaply from them to sell it later at a profit?

The pharmacy owners and the Chittagong unit of Bangladesh Chemist and Druggist Association leaders' were then making invalid arguments and their shutdown programme was unethical and immoral. It only caused misery to people. Instead of going for cheap tactics they should have faced it.

The traders and businessmen of the country try to protect their own interest by mounting pressure on government and administration with their organisations and associations but it is always the consumers who suffer in the end.