The Upper West Regional Office of the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), acting on intelligence, has arrested a suspected drug peddler in Tumu in the Sissala East Municipality.

The suspect, Abdul-Razak Kudus, was arrested for selling unregistered herbal drugs in Tumu and its enclave to unsuspected consumers.

Mr Kelvin Dafaari, the Acting Upper West Regional Head of the FDA, revealed this to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Wa.

He said the suspect was in police custody and would be made to face the full rigours of the law under the Public Health Act.

He said the suspect, who operated Sawab Herbal in Wa, had registered the Sawab capsules and Sawab ointment with the FDA but sold about eight different products under the guise of the two registered products.

The unregistered products included Men Enlargement Tonic, Sawab Power Bitters, Sawab Koo Tonic, and Sawab T-Mala Mix, among others.

“The most interesting thing is that all these medicines that he is selling are from one ingredient but with different labels that are kept on the products to sell.

"The herbal medicines are kept in different bottles, very dirty and not registered, and if you look at the expiring date on the drugs too, some of them have two varying expiring dates, one product with different expiring dates,” Mr Dafaari explained.

He said the suspect produced the products in Wa but sold them in Tumu to evade the routine inspections of his activities by the FDA.

He said the arrest of Kudus added up to two, the number of people arrested in the region this year for drug peddling.

The FDA Regional Boss, however, indicated that the issue of peddling drugs in the region had been reduced since the FDA began operation in the region in 2011.

He indicated that few people in the region had registered their herbal medicines but that the FDA had made the registration process very liberal for every person who wished to manufacture and sell herbal medicine to do so legally.

Mr Dafaari cautioned the people in the region, who engaged in drug peddling contrary to the Public Health Act to desist from the act since they would be sanctioned severely when apprehended.

He said the FDA staff might not be in every part of the region, but they were gathering intelligence and had eyes on the ground, and anyone apprehended would be sanctioned according to the law.