NAFDAC may seek life jail for fake drugs' dealers

IN its continued onslaught against dealers of fake drugs in the country, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, (NAFDAC) said it would present a bill to the National Assembly, prescribing life jail term for dealers of such substance.It added that it would prescribe the confiscation of the property of offenders alongside other fines.Director General of NAFDAC, Dr. Paul Orhii,disclosed this while addressing the Senate of the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, during his visit to the university on assessment of its cassava-based products.Orhii, who disclosed that work on the proposed bill had been concluded by a team of legal experts, further regretted that the manufacture, sale and distribution of fake drugs has become a global phenomena, hence the need for proactive action by different nations of the world to stem the ugly tide.He added:'As an individual, I would have opted for death penalty for offenders as the case in China because the producers of counterfeit drugs are worse than armed robbers. Aside taking the money of their victims, they also ensure their death. But human right groups argue that death penalty was no more acceptable in civilised societies.'But the fact is that the fake drugs phenomenon is taking a dangerous dimension the world over. With the intensified war against the dealers in narcotics, most of them have now diverted into the production and distribution of counterfeit drugs. Only recently, findings revealed that over 200 billion dollars is expended annually on the production of fake drugs the world over'.He stated that most of such fake drugs were always destined for Africa and other under-developed regions of the world.He, however, noted that Nigeria was wining the war against the phenomenon with the percentage of fake drugs in circulation in the country dropping to a single digit level, just as he assured that the country would soon be free from the incidents of counterfeit drugs.
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