With the abuse of prescription medications reaching epidemic proportions it is unbelievable that there are online pharmacies doling these medications without requiring so much as a prescription. Some online pharmacies that want to consider themselves legitimate require a fax of the prescription, never verifying its veracity.
Online Pharmacies
Some illegitimate online pharmacies sell drugs with no prescription or medical information at all while others ask for completion of a questionnaire before a prescription is issued by a physician who has never seen the patient.
Studies, according to psychcentral.com, from have found that 85 percent of websites offering controlled prescription drugs do not require a prescription, and many that do allow the prescription to be faxed, increasing the risk of forgery or fraud.
Even more frightening is the Internet serves as an open channel for distribution of controlled prescription drugs with no mechanisms to even block sales to children. This is particularly dangerous given that addiction is a disease that, in most cases, originates with substance use in adolescence.
It has been suggested that as many as 10 percent of prescription drug abusers obtain their drugs online, which most likely is a drastic underestimation given it would not include individuals most likely to abuse prescription drugs purchased over the Internet.
They also note that surveys in drug treatment centers would totally miss local drug dealers, who are increasingly likely to access their supplies online.
Earlier this year Jena and Dana Goldman, Ph.D., director of the Schaeffer Center at USC and a co-author of the commentary, published a study finding that states with the greatest expansion in high-speed Internet access from 2000 to 2007 also had the largest increase in admissions for treatment of prescription drug abuse.
They estimated that for every 10 percent increase in high-speed Internet use during those years, admissions for prescription drug abuse increased 1 percent.
“Prescription use starts with the physician,” said Goldman, “and we need to more actively engage them to control illicit use. Access to universal, electronic prescription records would be of great assistance in this regard.”
Both federal and private agencies have taken measures to reduce the impact of illicit Internet pharmacies, including the 2008 passage of the Ryan Height Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act, which specifically prohibits delivery of controlled substances prescribed by a physician who had never examined the patient.
But it is not know whether that law and related efforts, such as FDA warning letters to Internet pharmacies and their service providers, are at all successful. The authors note that regulatory efforts also are “stymied by these pharmacies’ ability to appear, disappear, and reappear constantly,” and the reluctance of search engines to stop running ads for rogue online pharmacies.
The increasing online availability of prescription drugs may entice individuals believed to be at low risk for drug abuse to overuse controlled medications.
The authors note that, while physicians and other health care providers should play a major part in addressing the challenges posed by Internet pharmacies, their awareness of the problem and ability to recognize and treat substance abuse of any kind is usually limited.
“Physicians need to educate patients about the risks of purchasing any medications over the Internet and should consider brief but routine questioning about Internet-based medication use,” said Jena. “Given the ability of illegal online pharmacies to evade law enforcement efforts, physician awareness and involvement will be crucial to reducing this problem.”