A senior federal health official wants to ban pharmaceutical companies from handing out free samples of drugs to doctors.

A large percentage of the medicines find their way into the hands of black marketers and to clandestine pharmacies in city neighborhoods, such as the notorious El Santuario in Guadalajara.

Federal officers raided El Santuario for the umpteenth time last week, netting an astonishing 35 tons of medicines, 80 percent of which were drug company samples, unlicensed for sale to the public.

Miguel Angel Toscano, commissioner for the federal Commission for the Protection Against Health Risks (Cofepris), said despite such hauls, the practice would go on unless legislation was passed to prevent drug companies from giving out the free samples. He hoped an initiative could be presented in the next session of the chamber of Deputies and enacted by 2009.

Toscano also questioned the pharmaceutical firms commitment to ending the black marketeering, noting that not a single company had ever filed a formal complaint against the sales in barrios such as El Santuario, a stone’s throw from the Federal Palace in Guadalajara.

A day after last week’s raid, El Santuario vendors were back trading.  People travel long distances from outlying areas of the state and further afield to purchase cheap medicines at El Santuario.