DSI to look into large orders
The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) will look into suspicious orders for cold medicines that can be used to produce amphetamines as well as question pharmaceutical manufacturers who might be involved.
The move follows the seizure of 130,000 pseudoephedrine pills in a raid in San Kamphaeng in Chiang Mai on February 18.
Earlier, the DSI investigated state hospitals to find out why such huge amounts of cold medicine containing pseudoephedrine were being ordered, and found that many officials had a hand in it, the department’s director-general Tarit Pengdith said.
“We found that the wrongdoers had placed huge orders, and once the medicines were delivered, they took them out of the hospital on the quiet and even smuggled them across the border,” Tarit said.
The DSI has teamed up with the Public Health Ministry to investigate every large order placed for cold medicines that contain the precursor chemical to make amphetamines.
The DSI will start its investigation with the Food and Drug Administration, which is the main agency that controls pharmaceutical production and is in charge of medicines delivered to hospitals. According to FDA records, about 24 million tablets of cold medicines are produced every year.
“This is an abnormally high number,” Tarit said.
Meanwhile, police and Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) Region 5 officials confiscated a huge amount of cold medicines after raiding a rented house in Chiang Mai province’s San Kamphaeng district. The team uncovered 7 million pills of 28 different brands that were taken out of their packaging, allegedly so they could be smuggled across the border.
Wichai Mongkol, director of
ONCB Region 5, said this cache of cold medicines was probably composed of the drugs that had gone missing from Central Udon Thani Hospital and Thongsaengkhan Hospital in Uttaradit two weeks ago.
