What would happen if the provision, originally envisaged by the Bersaniter Bill, which introduces the possibility of selling medicines with medical prescription also in supermarkets, were approved?
Above all, it would happen that the control over the regularity of the management of a delicate function such as the pharmaceutical one would become increasingly difficult, as the subjects and bodies to be supervised would increase, and not by a small amount. The first of the possible consequences of this expansion of the marketing of pharmaceutical products would concern drug counterfeiting. This phenomenon, which is already a reality in our country, is destined to increase in relation to the increase in those who can commercialize medicines. It is well known that today, in some Eastern countries, together with a large number of products of all kinds, medicines are also counterfeited, which then arrive in Italy through illegal channels. Here, after an action to mask their origin, they are put up for sale by some unscrupulous pharmacist: tomorrow, in addition, they could also be sold by some supermarket manager. The second probable effect would be the increase in thefts of genuine drugs and their subsequent illegal marketing. The cases in which trucks loaded with medicinal specialties disappear into thin air are not rare. And, if there is the thief of drugs, it means that there is also the receiver, that is, the one who receives them and then places them on the legal market. Up to now in our country he could only be a dishonest pharmacist, while tomorrow some supermarket owner with the same attitude could eventually join him. It must therefore logically be deduced that this enlargement of drug sellers could herald serious and irreparable dangers to the health of the community and individual consumers. But these are not the only consequences of this illicit trafficking. There are also others of a criminal nature - of extreme gravity - for the person or persons who commit the illicit marketing, after masking the origin of the medicinal products. The criminal hypothesis that the law foresees in these situations is very serious and goes by the name of money laundering (according to article 6748 bis of the Penal Code): it is punishable by law because it involves a destabilization of the markets with the disturbance of the economic order. The law provides for imprisonment from four to twelve years and a fine from one thousand to fifteen thousand euros for those who are responsible for this crime. The penalty is aggravated when the fact is committed in the exercise of a professional activity, such as that of a pharmacist. It takes place when goods deriving from an intentional crime are replaced, or other operations aimed at hindering the identification of their intentional origin are carried out in relation to them. This could occur when the pharmacist or supermarket manager, after receiving the counterfeited or stolen product, takes steps to simulate a legitimate origin and then places it on the market. The concealment of the real origin can take place in the most varied ways: from the use of false purchase invoicing to the preparation of containers for sale to the public which are completely similar to those in which genuine medicines are sold. When laundering is carried out by the pharmacist, in addition to the penal sanction, he is also subject to the disciplinary sanction by the Council of the Order, which can lead - in the most serious cases - even to dismissal. To this is added, as a consequence of an administrative nature, the loss of the Convention, which is
