Kathmandu, August 21:

The smuggling of listed drugs in national and international markets by post has become a new nightmare for the Department of Drug Administration (DDA) and the Postal Department since a month. Narcotics were found inside envelopes sent mostly to the United States with no forwarding address or with addresses, such as “So-and-so security services”. “A total of 181 such envelopes were seized following complaints from the US to the Postal Department of Nepal which in turn provided sample envelopes to the DDA for investigation,” said Bhupendra Bahadur Thapa, chief drug administrator at the DDA. He said some envelopes also contained antibiotics such as Amoxycilin. “Some of these drugs were wrapped in carbon papers so as to prevent their detection during X-Ray,” said Thapa.

Dr Hari Nath Acharya, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health and Population, said action would be taken in accordance with rules. The licences of around 10 drugstores and 18 entrepreneurs engaged in selling such drugs have been impounded for a period ranging from 1 to 3 months. These stores and traders were found guilty of selling expired drugs. Under the drive, a total of 14000 drugstores were monitored, of which 1359 were found to be indulging in malpractices. Around 94 stores had no registration, 18 were selling expired drugs while 66 were stocking unregistered drugs.