The Food Safety and Drug Administration of Uttar Pradesh has determined the upper limit of their storage and billing in the "public interest" due to the misuse of narcotic and psychotropic medications.
The sleep-inducing and psychiatric medications are being abused and used for recreational purposes, according to a memo published in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, on August 15 and seen by News18.com. Young children's health and wellness are negatively impacted and social evils are reinforced as a result of the misuse of these types of medications by young children.
The district's regulator has instructed all drug inspectors to ensure that 10 medications, including codeine-based cough syrups, tramadol, alprazolam, clonazepam, diazepam, nitrazepam, pentazocine, and buprenorphine, are not stored or billed in excess amounts.
For example, a retail seller is only permitted to maintain 100 bottles of any other size pack of cough syrup in a store whereas a wholesale distributor is only permitted to keep 1,000 bottles of cough syrups with codeine. Likewise, for a wholesale distributor, a day's billing for a person or a company is limited to 100 bottles, whereas a retail seller is limited to one bottle. Similarly, a retail vendor can only maintain 2000 capsules of any other size pack, strength, or combination of tramadol, a potent painkiller from the class of drugs known as opiates, or narcotics. A wholesale distributor is only permitted to keep 10,000 capsules (or tablets, or ampoules). In contrast, for wholesale distributors, the daily billing for a person or a company is limited to 200 capsules, and for retail sellers, sales are only permitted in accordance with prescriptions.
Additionally, the order said that cancer institutions would not be subject to these restrictions. It further states that if violators are found, the proper legal action would be taken against them. In addition, by displaying the purchasing and selling records, it enables sellers to raise the limit of the stock allowed.