The Consumer Protection Commission has started an inspection of all online shops selling medicines from Turkey. These sites do not meet the legal requirements for drug trade, but due to the high prices in our country and the chronic shortage in our country, thousands of Bulgarians buy from them.
Such products do not have a clear origin, it is not known how they are stored and they are often used without a doctor’s prescription, reports BNT.
The drug trade from Turkey is booming not only on the Internet, but also at every fair and dozens of markets in the country, with traders driving around in vans with handwritten signs.
The Commission has already banned the activity of one site with the assistance of GDBOP, but it has “resurrected” with a slightly changed name and is again selling Turkish medicines. An individual is behind the site. The fines that the Criminal Code may impose on him for the numerous violations exceed BGN 50,000. However, the man is untraceable.
“And we have invited the merchant and tried to visit him on the spot. The act regarding the first site, which you referred to us, has not been handed over,” Maria Filipova, chairperson of the commission, explained to the television. The Medicines Agency, which monitors the illegal trade in unauthorized medicines, did not respond to the questions and it is not known whether it has done anything about it.
“The fact that such a fine is recorded in the law does not at all mean that it has been imposed. At least I have no information that this exact sanction has ever been imposed”, explains the master pharmacist Dimitar Marinov, who is also the chairman of the Bulgarian Pharmaceutical Union.
“This is a crime involving drugs, which brings enormous harm to Bulgarian society. And as a result, we also see the huge processes of deregistration of medicines from Bulgaria”, commented the executive director of the association for the development of parallel trade in medicines, Boryana Marinkova.
Illegal drug trade in our country is not a crime, but an administrative violation.
Pharmacists have been calling for this to change for years. However, Alexander Simidchiev – PP-DB deputy and chairman of the parliamentary health committee, believes that this will not solve the problem. He wants, instead, tighter controls on courier services.
“There may be a commitment to the courier company to declare that the shipment in question does not contain certain things dangerous to life and health. If someone decides to send such things, they will provide a declaration with false content on the basis of which the full rigor of the law can be applied,” Simidchiev believes.
However, such a restriction can easily be circumvented, and a large part of this trade does not take place online, but directly in the markets.
dnes.bg
#Verification #drug #trading #sites #Turkey #begun
