STATE DRUG CONTROL CHIEF ON VETERINARY USE OF KETAMINE

Subscribe
MOSCOW, July 2 (RIA Novosti) - Viktor Cherkesov, director of the federal Drug Control Service, has assured that his agency has never planned, nor is going to plan persecution of veterinary physicians.

"No persecutions were, or are intended," he said in a live transmission of the Echo of Moscow radio station on Thursday.

Investigations into violations of selling and keeping of ketamine in Russia did not target "penetrating into the veterinary environment, redistribute the market, intimidating physicians or disappointing pet owners," Cherkesov said.

All the ketamine sold in Russia is smuggled, he said. "Ketamine is not (officially) supplied to Russia. The ketamine produced by the Moscow factory goes to countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States," he said.

"Initially, we were faced with illegal imports not for veterinary use. It turned out later that part of ketamine arrived to be used also in veterinary practice," Cherkesov said.

Criminal cases initiated against veterinarians using ketamine were sometimes "too straightforward," he admitted.

People had to be told that the use of ketamine was incompatible with the established practice, Cherkesov said.

"The instruction putting ketamine in the list of psychotropic substances allowed for use in veterinary was to be inked not in December 2003 but several years ago," he continued.

Even now, when the instruction has been inked, there are no regulations allowing a veterinary clinic to buy and use ketamine, he added.

Cherkesov said that only three or four such criminal cases remain. "They were initiated last year and are now tried in court," he specified.

Newsfeed
0
To participate in the discussion
log in or register
loader
Chats
Заголовок открываемого материала