Analyze/Street drugs kill! This is the refrain that we are used to listening particularly during awareness campaigns against a reality which is not only the source of numerous public health problems, but also considerably threatens the economic growth of African countries in particular, because if the phenomenon is global, the African continent is according to the World Health Organization, the space where are sold the most what we call particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, "street drugs", but which the World Health Organization rather calls "substandard medicines or falsified medicines”
A same reality called in different ways, to reflect the dangerous nature of these drugs which are still marketed despite everything, in commercial areas of sub-Saharan Africa. If, as an article published in July 2019 on the website of the daily newspaper Le Monde specified that the terms used by the WHO are more adapted to public health issues, given that the old term used was "counterfeit", to say that these are medicines which do not comply with quality standards, in sub-Saharan Africa, and in Cameroon in particular, people have chosen to adopt the term "street medicines or street drugs", not by carelessness or lack of awareness, but because they are equally aware of the issues surrounding the marketing of these drugs with dubious origins in human health, even if the fact that they are still marketed despite multiple awareness-raising efforts seems to say the complete opposite.
“Street medicines” therefore refers to the contextual adaptation of a universal reality that encompasses not only what comes from official drug sales channels, but also from those of dubious origin, which many have chosen to market in the streets or better still, in full view of everyone, despite awareness-raising and repression efforts, because as the president of the Order of Pharmacists of Togo clarified in 2019 to journalists from the daily Le Monde, “Sub-Saharan Africa concentrates all the vulnerabilities which will favour inferior or falsified medicines: the weakness of the governance of health systems, an insufficient supply of care and a network of pharmacies on the territory, the existence of an almost tolerated parallel market, and the poverty of the populations”, are the reason for the marketing of street drugs, which although considered dangerous by experts, remain because consumers have partly chosen for it to be so, despite everything, because if the authorities chose not to take into account these assumed favourable choice linked to a particular social contexts, the muscular operations would surely have considerably reduced the prevalence rate of this mercantile activity in African societies.
The evil therefore persists because a good portion of the populations of sub-Saharan Africa in particular, have chosen to adopt “street medicines”, because they believe that these are good medications. And that's where all the confusion lies. Indeed, faced with the opinions of experts who encourage States to eradicate this scourge by prohibiting their marketing in particular, the persistence of this lucrative activity in the streets, due in part to the fact that populations continue to buy them in the streets, poses a problem which is justified in part by the low purchasing power of populations, and because several drugs from formal marketing circuits are found in the streets or in these informal sales points recognized as being places for marketing drugs of dubious origins or those for which we do not always have certification of quality, because consumers for the most part, are very often satisfied only with the opinion of sellers or resellers whose answers can only be a way of making a good impression, so as not to miss an opportunity to get a good deal. But to be sure of the quality of the medicines you buy, you must go to approved points of sale which are none other than pharmacies, because by going to get supplies in the streets, there is a strong possibility of buying potentially dangerous medicines, because we do not know their true origins or if they are really of quality, and without short and medium term consequences on the health of the population. Indeed, although many people say they were satisfied after buying a medicine on the street, this does not always certify of the quality of that medicines, even taking into account that some medicines from the official marketing channel, also end up in informal outlets selling medicines of dubious origins. A way of saying that if these drugs can kill people, they can also be of good quality, to the extent that there are people who find satisfaction after purchasing them, as to say that not everything that is sold on the street is of poor quality. And it is precisely this bit of satisfaction that pushes many buyers to return again and again that promotes this confusion which is reflected in particular by the persistence of the presence of these drugs of dubious origins in the streets, as if to say that they are not dangerous, when in reality they are, to the extent that those who sell them have not received any certification, and do not have formal authorization to sell these potentially dangerous products in the streets. In other words, they are not authorized to sell medicines, whether of good quality or not, in informal sales outlets. What they sell to consumers has not been authorized by any competent authorities, even if certain drugs from the formal drug sales circuit can be found there. If quality medicines can also be found there, they are not appropriate places for this type of medicine, to the extent that it is a way of confusing consumers or leading them to adopt dubious and less expensive local choices which are certainly satisfactory, but which can have a terrible downside, especially when we do not really know the composition of what buyers consume, despite the dissuasive nature of the point of view of sellers who are not those of the most authoritative voices whose speeches on the subject are also a way of getting consumers to take their responsibilities, and not consume just anything, even if their presence despite the prohibitions seems to give the feeling of hesitation on the part of the highest authorities which can be partly explained by the fact that there are people who buy drugs in approved points of sale, to resell in other unapproved points on the one hand, and because they, (speaking of these high authorities) are aware of the fact that the populations do not always have the means to buy medicines in pharmacies, and are therefore very often forced to look for medicines which attack the same causes in informal local sales points where products of dubious origins are sold at lower cost, and even in detail, unlike what is done in pharmacies in the other hand.
