Good pharmaceutical distribution

The medical use of marijuana is not new. Five thousand years ago, the legendary Chinese Emperor Shen Nung was said to have prescribed marijuana for ailments such as gout, malaria, rheumatism, and even gas pains. — Until 1937, Americans considered marijuana a recognized medicine in good standing, distributed by leading pharmaceutical firms, and on sale at many pharmacies..—... 

In order to be in control of quality, the pharmaceutical establishment must devise and implement a system of quality assurance, this system must cover all phases of development, manufacture and distribution of medicines. The part of the system concerned with manufacture constitutes good pharmaceutical manufacturing practices. 

Pre-clinical studies are often performed with aqueous suspensions of the drug compound, the inclusion of a surfactant aids powder wetting and ensures good particle distribution. Tween 80 (polyoxyethylene 20 sorbitan mono-oleate) is widely established in the pharmaceutical industry as a suitable agent for this use. However, it was found unsuitable for producing a stable suspension for a particularly hydrophobic drug substance. 

This means that Australia, Malaysia and Venezuela have to invest significant human and financial resources in inspections of the supply channels in their respective countries in order to ensure compliance with the requirements of good distribution practice (GDP) and the provisions of the pharmaceutical laws. Arranging human resources and schedules for inspection is even more arduous when the distribution outlets are widely dispersed through the rural areas. 

The constant (Kp) is also known as the distribution coefficient or the partition coefficient. Interestingly, this particular relation [Eq. (a)) was originally derived for ideal solutions only, but it caters for a fairly good description of the behavioural pattern of a number of real-extraction-systems encountered in the analysis of pharmaceutical substances. However, the Partition Law offers the following two limitations, namely ... 

Sorption of pharmaceuticals onto the surface of particulate matter or their distribution between two phases (water and either sludge, sediment or soil) depends on many factors, the most important being liquid phase pH and redox potential, the stereochemical structure and chemical nature of both the pharmaceutical compound and the sorbent, the lipophilicity of the sorbed molecules (excellent sorption at log Kov > 4, low sorption at log < 2.4), the sludge-water distribution coefficient Kd Kd > 2 L g SS good sorption, < 0.3 L g SS low sorption), the extent of neutral and ioiuc species present in the wastewater and the characteristics of the suspended particles. Moreover, the presence of humic and fulvic substances may alter the surface properties of the sludge, as well as the number of sites available for sorption and reactions, thereby enhancing or suppressing sorption of PhCs [38, 55, 61]. 

The pharmaceutical industry has been using lactose for many years because its properties that aid flow characteristics and tablet or pill formation. The drug is distributed uniformly in lactose powder, which is easily molded or compressed into tablets. These have good dispers-... 

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