Chile Health Service Claims Illicit Drugs Being Sold Via Authorised Distributors

A recent report by the Chilean Instituto de Salud Pública (ISP), the national regulatory authority for pharmaceutical products, has sparked the interest of several local news outlets, due to the report’s surprising conclusions regarding the illicit trade of pharmaceuticals in the nation.

One news article, published in April by Chile’s largest newspaper El Mercurio, was particularly shocking, given that Chile has always prided itself on the ability of its institutions to control illicit traffic.

However, according to the article, this is no longer the case as far as the ISP is concerned.

Decades of complaints, few changes

Let’s go back in time a little. While large pharma companies, in general, have always complied with the state’s attempt to track and control sales of medicine and vaccines, smaller producers and street vendors have never been easy to trace. For this reason, the focus was placed on controlling the distribution network, which was usually vertically integrated by the larger producers.