A fierce warning from former MP Wimal Weerawansa claims Sri Lanka has crossed a dangerous line by legalizing what was once a criminal offense, exposing patients to substandard medicines while masking governance failures with misleading economic claims.
Importing substandard medicines has been a criminal offense in Sri Lanka for 76 years. Now, according to the National Freedom Front, that long-standing protection has effectively been dismantled. National Freedom Front leader and former MP Wimal Weerawansa alleged that the current government has legalized what was once considered a serious crime, placing patients at grave risk.
Speaking at a media briefing held at the National Freedom Front party office in Battaramulla, Weerawansa accused the government of misleading Parliament and the public by presenting a budget surplus that does not reflect sound economic management. He said the surplus exists not because the economy has been stabilized, but because the government does not know how to spend public funds responsibly, adding that people are being deceived by what he described as “putting sweet potatoes in its mouth” in Parliament.
Weerawansa said the most alarming issue confronting the country today is what he called the campaign of sacrificing patients to an “Indian substandard medicine mafia.” He reminded that for 76 years, Sri Lanka strictly maintained a pharmaceutical benchmark of British Standard or higher, applying it uniformly across both government hospitals and the private sector.
He emphasized that even during periods of crisis, shortages, or economic hardship, no government in the past lowered that benchmark. Sri Lanka never compromised on medicine quality, regardless of circumstances. According to him, controversies over imported medicines in the past always centered on one question: whether they met the British Standard. Even medicines that complied only with Indian standards were previously rejected and treated as regulatory failures.
That situation, he said, has now changed fundamentally.
“Importing inferior medicines full of impurities was a mistake before. Now it has been institutionalized. Now it is not considered a crime.”
Weerawansa accused the government of secretly adopting the Indian Pharmacopoeia, thereby legitimizing lower-quality medicines and endangering public health. He urged the authorities to immediately withdraw from this decision and revoke the adoption of the Indian Pharmacopoeia without delay.
He also called on the government to abolish the floor price mechanism, which he claimed was introduced to create a monopoly for inferior drugs, further distorting the pharmaceutical market.
According to Weerawansa, the issue is not only about medicine standards but about governance, transparency, and the state’s responsibility to protect the lives of its citizens.
