Pharmacology

Ministers on Thursday decided against supporting a proposed amendment to the law on the prevention of drug abuse, which would have allowed for the medical use of marijuana in certain circumstances.

There is a shortage of medicines in Greece, particularly vaccines for children, the head of the country’s Pharmacists’ Association, Constantinos Lourantos, warned on Thursday.

He blamed a lack of supply and firms exporting drugs to markets where they could sell them at a better price as the key factors causing the alleged shortage.

Vice President Joe Biden's son was discharged this year from the US Navy reserve after testing positive for cocaine, a US official confirmed to AFP on Oct. 16.

Two men were arrested in the northern port city of Thessaloniki over the weekend on charges of running a contraband alcohol racket.

Investigators said that a company owned by one of the two suspects, aged 49, and which officially traded in detergents, had been transformed into a contraband alcohol bottling unit.

The Pharmacists Association on Thursday described as “illegal” a pilot scheme launched by the post office (ELTA), which allows customers to order medicines and have them delivered from pharmacies to their homes for 3 euros.

The pharmacists claim the law allows drugs to only be dispensed in pharmacies.

Police in Athens on Wednesday arrested three suspected members of a large drug-dealing racket after confiscating 222 kilograms of cannabis from their homes.

According to sources, the racket had set up a bogus firm – a Piraeus-based commercial company – as a front for their illicit operations and procured winning lottery tickets to launder their gains.

The tobacco purchase campaign in Bulgaria has began, however there is zero interest among buyers, Bulgarian private TV station bTV reports.

Health officials in Greece are considering removing a prescriptions ceiling imposed on all public healthcare doctors if they are able to ensure that at least 60 percent of the drugs they prescribe are generic.

A 24-year-old foreign national faced a prosecutor in Thessaloniki on Tuesday on charges of drug dealing on the campus of the northern port city’s Aristotle University.

Police arrested the suspect on the university grounds after receiving a tip-off about his alleged illegal activities.

They found six packages containing a total of 796 grams of cannabis on his person.

Two methamphetamine labs and a greenhouse for cannabis have been uncovered in an operation of Bulgaria's State Agency for National Security (DANS) in Sofia.

During the special police operation, which was conducted on September 25-26 and was supervised and managed by the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office, five Bulgarian nationals were arrested.