Continued sale of medicines in stores angers pharmacists, amid demands to activate deterrence and monitoring

Agadir24

The phenomenon of selling pharmaceutical preparations and formulations is widespread in many shops in most Moroccan cities, as citizens are accustomed to frequenting shops that secretly promote these pharmaceutical components and in installments, to meet their needs related to purchasing units of a specific medicine.

This “old-new” phenomenon angers pharmacists who cling to Law No. 17.04, the Code of Medicines and Pharmacy.
The provisions of which determine the method of selling medicines from the time they are prepared in the factory until they reach the pharmacist, who has the exclusive right to promote the medicine.

Article 55 of the law stresses that the places where the pharmacy profession is practiced are pharmacies, drug stocks in clinics, and pharmaceutical institutions, while inspection and monitoring committees decide on severe penalties against anyone involved in this regard.

Although this code has been in effect since 2006, the phenomenon of selling medicines in stores is still widespread, while pharmacists are clinging to the demand to “definitively end the circulation of medicines outside pharmacies.”

In response to this issue, Hamza Kadira, President of the National Council of the Moroccan Pharmacists Association, revealed that “the principle is that medicines are manufactured and then transferred to the licensed distributor who distributes them to the pharmacies responsible for providing them to citizens as a vital substance,” adding that “anything outside this chain of practices and actors is a violation of the law.”

Kadira explained that selling medicines outside pharmacies poses a danger to citizens, noting that “despite the decline in this activity compared to the past, there are those who continue to provide this service without legal basis.”

The same speaker stressed that “every point where medicine is sold must have a pharmacist supervising the process,” calling for tightening control over violations of the Drug and Pharmacy Code.