Millions of tablets found missing in two hospitals
Millions of tablets containing pseudoephedrine are found to have disappeared from two hospitals, raising concern that might have been stolen to produce methamphetamine, police investigators said.
Assistant National Police Commissioner LtGeneral Jaramporn Suramanee yesterday convened a meeting of relevant authorities in a bid to prevent any future disappearances.
Medication containing pseudoephedrine now have to be prescribed because they can be used a precursor chemical to produce methamphethamine.
The police investigation team traced the disappearance of medication from two hospitals, one in Chiang Mai and the other in Udon Thani, after the Provincial Police Region 5 discovered a huge number of empty medicine packages at a house in Chiang Mai’s San Kampaeng district. Further checks found a stockpile of 230,000 pseudoephedrinecontaining tablets at another house. This amount was clearly much higher than what is allowed under law.
“By law, only hospitals with patient beds can order medication containing pseudoephedrine, and even then it can be no more than 5,000 tablets a month,” Jaramporn said.
He added that investigation suggested that some hospital officials had faked documents to steal the medicines. “The embezzlement alone is a legal offence and if there’s evidence that the officials are also involved in drugmanufacturing gangs, they will face more charges,” Jaramporn said.
