Mumbai, March 22: A serious question has been raised over Maharashtra’s narcotics control system. According to the Centre, the state’s food and drugs administration (FDA) in 2008 made possible the supply to drug firms of three times its quota of codeine phosphate.
Codeine is the starting material for mild to moderate opiates. Its phosphate is the main ingredient of cough syrups, which are a non-prescription drug, but have potential for abuse.
On July 30, 2009, the Union finance ministry’s revenue department wrote a letter to the state government about alleged mishandling of codeine phosphate by the FDA. But neither the public health department, to which the letter was addressed, nor the medical education department, under which the FDA falls, have responded.
All states are given a yearly quota of narcotic substances used for medicine manufacture. The quota is determined by the International Narcotics Control Board along with the country’s narcotics control bureau. A state drug controller can exceed the quota by no more than 10%, that too with the approval of the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI).
The letter under reference — written by the central revenue department’s additional secretary Jose K Cyriac; a copy is with DNA — said Maharashtra’s FDA clearly violated the norms in 2008.
“The chief controller of factories (under the DGCI) has reported that for the year 2008, the DGCI had allocated a quota of 6,000kg of codeine phosphate to Maharashtra,” it said, adding, “However, the FDA, Maharashtra, allocated 19,768kg of codeine phosphate to companies during the year, which is more than thrice the quantity allocated to them.” It was addressed to the state health and family welfare department’s additional chief secretary Sharvari Gokhale.
–Agencies–