Over 500 chemists in Kerala to take oath on WPD day pledging abstinence from sale of habit-forming drugs

The members of the All Kerala Chemists and Druggists Association (AKCDA) in Thiruvananthapuram district will take a solemn oath along with students of pharmaceutical sciences and their teachers on September 25, as part of the institution’s World Pharmacist Day celebration.

Over 500 chemists will join the students and teachers of the John Enoch College of Pharmacy at Karamana in the state capital to participate in the oath-taking ceremony to pledge that the medical shops will not sell habit-forming drug to students or youths or to any other people other than those who need it on valid prescription. The college is managed by the AKCDA.

The students and teachers will pledge that they will abstain from any kind of drug addiction and advise their friends to restrain themselves from drug abuse.

According to sources, AKCDA is organizing the world pharmacist day celebration in a grand manner this year involving a cabinet minister from the state government in the wake of no pharmacist association actively organizing the 14th WPD in Kerala.

It is learnt that the program will begin with a public awareness rally from Karamana junction to Nedumkadu where the pharmacy college of the association is located. Students, teachers, working pharmacists and members of the AKCDA will enthusiastically participate in the rally which will start at 7 am in the morning. The rally is conducted for public awareness.

At the culmination of the rally at John Enoch College where the venue is set up for the inaugural function of seminars and public awareness classes, the state general education minister V Sivankutty will inaugurate the Day’s programme. AN. Mohan, president of the chemists and druggists education society (CDES) will preside over the meeting.

The program at the college will include awareness classes to students, teachers and public to drive home anti-drug addiction messages which will be provided by senior officers from the excise, drug control and police departments. Later, students at the college will distribute seedlings they collected from the social forestry department to the people living nearby the institution as social activity.

Corporation councilor Karamana Ajith, education society secretary M Sasidharan, drug controller P M Jayan, assistant commissioner of police S. Shaji, assistant excise commissioner S Vinod Kumar and AKCDA district committee secretary J Jayanarayanan Thampi will speak on the theme, ‘Role of Pharmacists and Chemists in Building up an Alcohol-free Kerala’.

The World Pharmacist Day was created in 2009 by the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) Council at the world congress of pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences in Istanbul in Turkey. Since FIP was formed on September 25, the day was chosen as the WPD, which is now celebrated globally.

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