MA Salam, Dinajpur
Because of the skyrocketing price and the difficult problem to procure and store, the drug addicts of Dinajpur and other districts of the country’s northern part were now preferring ACI Company's Lopenta-75 and Square Company's Tiptin-10 as alternative to Yaba.
According to some hardcore drug addicts, Lopenta and Tiptin are now their favourite drugs as a substitute for Yaba. By mixing these two tablets, they were quenching the addiction for Yaba.
Specially, such combination of the newly discovered drug is popular among poor, school and college-going students and young drug addicts.
Taking the opportunity of excessive price and scarcity of Yaba, the two Pharmaceutical companies were earning a huge sum of money by selling Lopenta and Tiptin. It is alleged that the pharmaceutical companies, representatives and retailers were selling those two drugs at two to five-times more than that of the fixed retailed and wholesale price.
According to sources, there is a huge sale of Lopenta and Tiptin in urban and rural areas of all the upazilas of Dinajpur district. The retailed price (MRP) of per piece of Lopenta-75 mg is Tk. 20.00, while it is being sold at Tk. 30 to 60. Again, the retail price of per piece of Tiptin-10 mg is TK. 8.00, but it is also being sold at Tk. 30 to 60 per piece.
A drug addict of Dinajpur sadar area requesting anonymity informed, due to high price, unavailability and risk involvement in getting Yaba, he used to mix Lopenta and Tiptin and took that as drug. "What else could we do, since Yaba is costly and hard to purchase.?”
However, the representatives and drug stores are reluctant to supply them with these two drugs at a fair price. They usually charge more than double the regular price.
On the other hand, the addicts used tablets Sinta of Healthcare Company and Pentodal of Square Pharmaceuticals as drugs. They also used these tablets as alternative for Yaba.
It is learnt that these drugs were being used as alternative for Yaba, not only in Dinajpur but also in Panchgarh, Thakurgaon, Nilphamari, Rangpur, Kurigram, Lalmonirhat and Gaibandha districts.
Rafiqul Islam, Superintendent of Drugs, Dinajpur, was not available for comment on this issue. Mahmudul Alam, Deputy Commissioner of Dinajpur also could not be connected over the mobile phone for comment.
People of Dinajpur, however, demanded to stop selling of those drugs at the drug stores to save the young men of the country from being deranged.
