On July 18, representatives of the Ministry of Healthcare, the Federal Service for Alcohol Market Regulation and members of the Government’s Expert Council discussed measures to prevent the consumption of dual-purpose alcohol-containing substances, graded as medical substances in the current legislation, instead of alcoholic beverages.
Yelena Malinkina, head of the regulator’s department of regulatory documents, said they believe that excise taxes on alcohol-containing substances must be raised.
Yelena Maksimova, director of the Healthcare Ministry’s department of state regulation of the pharmaceutical market, proposed strict monitoring of the market of alcohol-containing substances. She also spoke in favour of the alcohol licensing procedure, saying that there must be a clear distinction between alcohol used for making spirits and alcohol used for pharmaceutical purposes.
The experts proposed introducing alternative pharmaceutical forms, but the general consensus at the meeting was that this would greatly increase the price of medicines. For example, 25 ml of hawthorn infusion costs 10 roubles, while a pack of 40 hawthorn pills costs as much as 138 roubles. A proposal was also made to limit the dosage of alcohol-containing substances to 25 ml and to sell only two vials of alcohol-containing OTC medicines per person.
Dr Dmitry Reikhart (Biology), a professor at the Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University, suggested that the Healthcare Ministry should resume the practice of removing obsolete and ineffective substances from the stock list and the state register.
The summary of the proposals put forth at the meeting was forwarded to the Government.
Source: Open Government
