In anthropology of pharmaceuticals it is recognized that pharmaceutical products have life in themselves. This paper presents the findings of a qualitative study conducted among 81 people involved in the life cycles of psychotropic drugs. Based on the “biographical approach” proposed by Van der Geest and colleagues the paper describes people’s perception on how psychotropic drugs take social and cultural meaning from their birth (production), life span (import, promotion, procurement, whole sell and retail marketing, transport, storage, prescription) to death (consumption or disposal).
The findings suggest the psychotropic drugs in all these phases of life come across people with different norms and values in diverse socio-cultural and economic settings. Therefore, the perception of these people about psychotropic drug is important for health policy and planning. The major factors affecting supply chain were; awareness of mental health service users about psychotropic drugs, the confidence of primary health care workers in prescribing the drug, the perception on the effectiveness of the drugs provided by the government, the misuse of drugs, the promotional bonus war between the pharmaceutical companies to lure the prescribing doctors and the bureaucratic hassles related to series of approval and record keeping requirements for the psychotropic drugs.
The strategies suggested by the participants to improve the supply chain management of psychotropic drugs included; strict implementation of existing polices, regular training to primary health care workers on psychotropic drug prescription and side effect management, regulation regarding bonus payment by pharmaceutical companies, regulation regarding duration of validity of prescription paper, practice of writing generic name of the drugs instead of company trade name, replacing newer and effective drugs in government free drug list.