Ahmedabad:

The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in a joint operation with the Food and Drug Control Administration (FDCA), Gujarat has arrested 3 members of a racket involved in illegal sale of cough syrup which can also be used as addictive drug and recovered over 40000 bottles of it worth around Rs 47 lakhs.

NCB Zonal Director Hari Om Gandhi today said that Bharat Chaudhry residence of Behrampura and Nilesh chavda residence of Odhav Industrial area in Ahmedabd were arrested last night with around 5,160 bottles of codeine-based cough syrup Safecod which have been recovered from two places. 2400 bottles were recovered from Chavda and 2760 from Bharat who belongs to Rajasthan and his license was canceled long back and he was selling it illegally. He was previously booked in two cases in Mumbai and presently was on bail. Nilesh also used to supply it on the behalf of Bharat Chaudhry.

In fact of the total around 50000 bottles of Safecod brought from Himachal by a Patan based dealer 37,198 bottles of this Codeine Phosphate Cough syrup were earlier seized from a godown situated near Rajpur Bus stand Patan on June 29. One person named Lalit Patel owner of Diya health care Sanand was arrested under Sections 8/21/25/29 of NDPS act. The owner Lalit patel has drug license for Sanand establishment but the consignment of Codeine syrup was stocked at Rajpur Godown which is illegal. All the bottles are of one batch and he got them manufactured from a Himachal Pradesh, based manufacturer. The batch size was 50,000 bottles. Out of them he has sold 105 boxes which is around 12,900 bottles to Vansh Pharma Medical illegally during last 2 days.

The 5160 bottles recovered from Ahmedabad is part of the earlier sold 12900 bottles.

The price of each of the bottle of 100 ml is Rs 110/-. So far a total of over 42000 bottles worth around Rs 47 lakhs has been recovered. Further investigation was on.

Gandhi said that Codeine abuse can develop into a full-fledged codeine addiction. Codeine is one of the many pharmaceuticals classified as an opiate. Opiates are narcotics with a high potential for addiction. When used as prescribed, this pain reliever and cough suppressant is a relatively mild opiate. However, it is still a dangerous drug that is increasing in usage and popularity, both with celebrities and with teenagers and young adults.

DeshGujarat