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The Department of Health is responsible for licensing the manufacture, sale and supply of drugs for medical purposes.
It provides executive support to the Pharmacy and Poisons Board for the enforcement of legislation on pharmaceutical products. Pharmacist inspectors are empowered to inspect licensed drug premises, check records, and conduct test purchases at retail outlets to ensure the laws are complied with. Offenders are prosecuted and may be subject to disciplinary action by their professional bodies. Under the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance, the Director of Health may, in the public interest, withdraw the power of medical practitioners to manufacture, possess, supply and prescribe dangerous drugs. This power was exercised in two recent cases.
The Department of Health has a well-established mechanism for monitoring the supply of drugs to registered medical practitioners and dispensaries.
Under the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance, pharmacist inspectors are authorised to conduct inspections at the premises of pharmaceutical wholesalers, manufacturers, retailers and the clinics of medical practitioners to ensure that the laws regulating the sale, storage and record-keeping of dangerous drugs are complied with.
Dangerous drugs can only be supplied by a doctor or sold to the public on prescription of a doctor at pharmacies which are authorised sellers of poisons. They must be kept in a locked receptacle and detailed records must be kept. During inspections, the physical stock of the drugs is matched with the records to detect irregularities. Prosecution action is initiated where there is sufficient evidence to indicate breaches of the law.
As regard medical practitioners, the Department of Health monitors their purchase of dangerous drugs. Those with high utilisation are requested to submit statistics and information on their utilisation. Pharmacist inspectors can then focus attention on those suspected of inappropriate use. If there is a conviction, the Medical Council would also convene an enquiry and appropriate disciplinary action including removal from the register would be instituted. Having said that, I must emphasise that these "black sheep" constitute only a small minority of the pharmacist and medical professions.
Both the Police and the Customs operate hotlines to encourage members of the public to report drug information. The Department of Health also has a hotline for the public to report information related to the illegal sale of drugs. It introduced a computerised drug/pharmaceutical information hotline in March 1995 to promote public awareness of the importance of proper use of drugs.