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Ephedrine scam: UN drug regulator
to come knocking for answers
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ISLAMABAD: An international watchdog on illicit drug trade has unilaterally announced that its delegation will visit Pakistan from September 10 to 15 for verification of investigations into the politically-explosive ephedrine drug quota case.
INCB is a UN body with its headquarters in Vienna, Austria, and is authorised to check illicit trade of drugs across the globe.
INCB is said to be extremely concerned about the misuse of authority by senior Pakistani authorities in awarding huge quotas of ephedrine.
INCB had also listed a number of complaints made by Iran, Australia and several other countries, which accused Pakistan of transporting huge quantities of ephedrine-based addictive drugs to their markets. **INCB listed Pakistan as the fourth major ephedrine-based drug supplier to world market in its annual report 2011.
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Pakistani authorities concede that they may face a tough time providing information, updates, and, most importantly, answers, to the visiting INCB delegation. They also concede that the failure to satisfy the INCB delegation could mean Pakistan would face curbs on its pharmaceutical industry.
Another amazing feature in our glorious cap 
But whoever may come, I have full confidence in the abilities of our bigwigs to come clean out of this scandal. All these proceedings will eventually fizzle out after some time as we are good at taking up cases, but terrible at seeing them through. Even if the UN is involved in this scam, it’s only a matter of time when the case will die a procedural death.