Union government has prepared a draft of the National Policy for Drug Demand Reduction involving state governments, Union Territories, concerned Ministries and other stakeholders. The key focus of the National Policy is to educate and make efforts to build awareness in this regard at all levels.

The government will also insist on treatment, rehabilitation, ensure recovery besides helping the patients to adopt preventive health measures. It will also network with healthcare service providers across the spectrum in different parts of the country to ensure that it is able to achieve the objective to reduce the demand for drugs. Efforts to embark on capacity building and training of service providers in the field of drugs  with a view to build up skilled manpower is also on the cards.

In an age of technology, social media, mobile, analytics and cloud computing, the government will also look to increasing its efforts in data collection and management. It would take on the support of the information technology companies for the same. In addition, the government will aggressively scout for inter-sector collaboration and international cooperation.

The policy also proposes a system of accreditation of de-addiction Centres in order to standardize the treatment and establish facilities. All these will be carried out in coordination with Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and other stakeholders.

The details of the National Policy for Drug Demand Reduction was given by the Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment, Vijay Sampla here to the Lok Sabha.

According to the pharma industry, the government move is a positive one as it is looking at preventive healthcare.

Pharmacy college heads in the country look at the National Policy for Drug Demand Reduction as a platform for new jobs for scores of candidates and particularly D Pharm students. This is going by the demand put forth by the government to put in systems on advising on drug consumption and stall any related adverse drug reactions.

According to Dr Ajay Bakshi, MD & CEO, Manipal Hospitals, patients view diseases in a transactional manner and treat the condition till the symptoms are controlled. This is because of the patient’s business mindset and his attitude towards negotiating with the doctor on treating the condition. Therefore doctors should now look at educating the patient on the long-term care for health which would save costs for the patient in the long run. However, there is a high awareness of health alerts in the southern states of the country rather than the north India. Manipal too is seen to invest in awareness that will fundamentally change the way healthcare is seen.

According to JSD Pani, president, Karnataka Indian Medicine Manufacturers Association, the government has been encouraging alternative systems of medicine and this is where Ayush comes to the fore as there are several symptom control and preventive methods in this field, besides promote healthy living to achieve the objective of National Policy for Drug Demand Reduction.