Society

Proper use of controlled drugs urged

By Lan Tian (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-01-27 07:35

The health authorities have urged healthcare professionals across the country to improve the clinical application and administration of narcotics and other specially controlled medicines, in the latest move to ensure medical quality and safety.

"These medicines can help people if used properly. But they can also cause dependence or even addiction if used improperly, which would seriously affect people's health," Zhao Minggang, deputy director of the medical administration department under the Ministry of Health (MOH), said at the launch of a training program in Beijing over the weekend.

The specially controlled medicines include narcotics, psychotropic substances, toxic drugs for medical use and radioactive drugs, according to China's Pharmaceutical Administration Law revised in 2001.

In the country, narcotics such as morphine, codeine and ketamine are used clinically for relieving pain; while psychotropic substances such as barbital and triazolam are mainly for improving sleep or relieving anxiety and tension, according to the ministry.

Co-organized by the MOH and the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA), the three-year program covers about 100,000 pharmacists, doctors and nurses at 332 cities of 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions.

They will be trained in the knowledge of relevant laws and the effective use of special medicines in treatment.

"Lacking relevant knowledge, a number of medical workers are too strict in controlling the amount of narcotics when prescribing them. The low doses do not relieve pain but instead inflict it on the patients, especially patients suffering from advanced cancer," Zhao said.

There is also a growing need for these medicines as more people are suffering from anxiety, sleeplessness and even fatal diseases when living and working under greater pressure, said Wang Zhexiong, deputy director of the safety supervision department under the SFDA.

"But the use of narcotics and psychotropic substances in health facilities is still at a low level as it has not met the present clinical demand in China," he said.

"For instance, due to traditional and historical reasons, not a few Chinese doctors believe that morphine must be used sparingly with great caution, for fear of patients' addiction," said Han Jisheng, 81, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a renowned professor of neurological pharmacology at Peking University.

That idea has led to doses of morphine commonly being given to pain-stricken cancer patients in China that are less than 10 percent of the average dose in developed countries, he said.

"Doctors shouldn't hesitate to give reasonable doses of morphine to these patients because it has been proven theoretically and practically that few of such patients have developed addiction to the drug," he said.

Zhao also urged strengthening administration on the production, transportation, sale and use of special medicines.

Despite authorities' strict control, a number of people still use regulatory loopholes to illegally purchase precursor chemicals to process drugs for profit, he said.

Police have found and cracked down on illegal drugs processing sites in Fujian, Guangdong, Sichuan and Shandong provinces in recent years, media reports have shown.

By last June, the number of registered drug users in China totaled 1.22 million, while the annual growth rate of drug users decreased to 5.6 percent from a peak of 30 percent in the 1990s.

About 47.8 percent of new drug addicts used new-type drugs, including methamphetamine, known as "ice", and ketamine, also known as "K power". New-type drug users are mainly under the age of 35, according to the National Narcotics Control Commission.