PT Bintang Toedjoe through its Komix Herbal brand celebrated World Pharmacist Day by organizing an educational event for high school students in Jember. With the theme “Healthy Generation, Herbal Generation: It's Time for Gen-Z to Know Herbs!”, the event held at SMA 1 Jember on September 25, 2024 was attended by 50 student representatives from various schools, who received educational materials from the PC of the Indonesian Pharmacists Association (IAI) Jember, the Food and Drug Supervisory Center in Jember and the East Java Tribune media. The event aimed to raise awareness of the younger generation on the importance of health through the use of herbal medicines.

Khrisna Agung Cendekiawan, S.Farm, M.Farm, M.Kes, a speaker from PC IAI Jember, in his presentation said that self-medication, or self-medication, is the first step in treatment. He emphasized the importance of the DAGUSIBU principle (Get, Use, Store, and Dispose of Medicines Properly) in the use of herbal medicines. “Self-medication is the first step in treatment. Therefore, we must be careful in obtaining, wise in using, storing, and disposing of drugs,” Khrisna said.

Eko Agus Budi Darmawan, S.F., Apt., M.Pharm. Head of the POM Center in Jember, also provided education on the importance of understanding natural medicines. In his presentation, he emphasized that students must understand the process that herbal medicines go through until they can provide benefits to the community.

He also advised students to always verify information related to drugs through the KLIK Check program (Packaging, Label, Permit, Expiration), BPOM Mobile to the rules of herbal medicine advertising. In addition, Sri Wahyuni, Bureau Chief of East Java Tribune discussed the importance of ethics in using social media, especially when sharing information related to herbal medicines.  According to her, freedom on social media must be accompanied by responsibility, especially in disseminating information related to health. “Students can play a role as mediators of information, but it must be with good ethics, especially related to medicines, more selective with HOAX,” Yuni explained.

The event received a positive response from the participants. Syafira, one of the students who attended, expressed the benefits of this activity. “The information provided by the resource person is very useful. I just know a lot of things about herbal medicine, and hopefully this activity can be done again in other schools,” she said. 

Zaini Ahsan Prahendra, Public Relations of PT Bintang Toedjoe, added that education related to herbal medicine is very important. “In the momentum of World Pharmacist Day, we can collaborate, we hope that the information obtained by participants will be more complete and comprehensive, especially Gen-Z is identical to tech savvy and digital natives so we hope they can disseminate more widely and also to those closest to them,” said Zaini.

Komix Herbal is an herbal cough medicine made from red ginger and lagundi leaves. Lagundi leaf (Vitex Negundo) is one of the herbs that contain active compounds such as flavonoids, alkaloids, and triterpenoids that have anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic, and expectorant properties. Due to these properties, lagundi leaves have been used in traditional medicine to relieve cough.