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India producing opium for export

RECORDER REPORT

ISLAMABAD: Member of the International Narcotics Control Board Dil Jan Khan, confirmed here on Wednesday that India was among the very few countries which have been permitted to produce and export poppy or opium for use by the pharmaceutical firms.

He was answering a question from the Federal Interior Minister, Lt Gen Moinuddin Haider (Retd) during the launching of the annual report of the International Narcotics Control Board on the world wide drug situation. Dil Jan Khan said that he had been informed reliably that India was growing large quantities of opium and was exporting it earning a good deal of money.

Khan said India was one of the very few countries allowed to do so to feed the pharmaceutical industry but he could not speak on its volume in the terms of money or weight. The other country allowed to do so was Australia, he added.

Khan could not give a precise answer when the Interior Minister asked how the INCB will react if Pakistan purchased opium from Afghanistan and supplied it to the western pharmaceutical firms for manufacturing sedatives and other medicines.

Dil Jan Khan - a Pakistani, and one of the 13 members of the INCB - then referred to the portions of the annual report expressing concern over inadequate medical supply of narcotic drugs to relieve pain and suffering. The report had said that morphine and other opiates which are used to alleviate pain were often not available in many countries around the world.

While the INCB, he said continued to exercise vigil and stress stricter controls on abuse and oversupply of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, it has in the lead chapter conveyed its concern over what it said as "troubling undersupply" of such medicines for licit purposes.

It however, said it was difficult to estimate the number of people dependent such drugs but studies in the developed countries had shown that large "segments of society are affected". It supported research results that 75 to 90 percent of opined treatment of patients with cancer-related pain could be effective and Codeine was widely used for suppressing cough and as an analgesic.

The report also drew attention to the "over-medication in many developed countries" saying that it was of greater concern to the INCB as it lead to pain and suffering of a different kind than seen in undersupplied countries. But at the sametime it urged governments worldwide to ensure that narcotic drugs were available so that patients do not suffer. To avoid their abuse, the report called for continued strict control procedures so that those reach hospitals, doctors and patients without drifting into illicit markets.