Former French president Jacques Chirac launched the international drive against fake drugs in Benin on Monday. One out of four drugs administered in the developing countries is fake, he said at the launch of the crusade in Benin's major city Cotonou. The main objective of this mobilization is to raise alarm on the health, economic and social consequences that the scourge of fake medication can cause. 'It is time for the highest political authorities in all nations of the world, without any distinction, to act on this problem,' declared Chirac, who has a foundation named after him in the West African nation. Chirac compared the trade of fake medications to drug trafficking. 'The user of drugs knows that he is taking prohibited products, but a sick person does not know that the medicine he is taking is dangerous,' he said. The transnational traffickers of the lucrative business of fake drugs use the profits in other delinquent activities, he said, adding 200,000 deaths would have been avoided if the prescribed medication for malaria would conform to the guidelines and if they were capable of treating the disease. A fake drug, he declared, is a product which was deliberately or fraudulently labeled. 