Why People Buy Prescription Drugs Online
Buying prescription drugs online is a tremendous convenience, particularly for busy people who find it difficult to time pharmacy visits so that they can get in and out quickly. Furthermore, many legitimate online pharmacies offer competitive prices, and of course, they deliver right to your door. Ordering a refill online is easy, and automatic refills can be arranged with some online pharmacies.
Social factors can also play a role in people’s decisions to purchase prescription drugs online. Frankly, there are some prescriptions people would rather not be seen purchasing. Prescription medications for hair loss, toenail fungus, erectile dysfunction, or excess sweating can make a person anxious about speaking with the pharmacist, or crossing paths with a neighbor while getting a prescription filled.
Health Dangers of Buying Prescription Drugs Online
When you purchase prescription drugs from licensed online pharmacies, you’ll get expedient service, competitive prices, privacy, and convenience. On the other hand, when you purchase prescription drugs (or what a website purports to be prescription drugs) from a disreputable online pharmacy, you could have your identity stolen, have to deal with shipment problems, or worse, receive a product that is not what you think it is.
Counterfeit drugs rake in billions of dollars a year worldwide for rogue online pharmacies. The most frequently counterfeited drug, perhaps not surprisingly, is Viagra, a hugely popular drug for erectile dysfunction. If you’re lucky, a fake prescription drug will contain harmless, inert ingredients. But if you’re not so lucky, you could unwittingly ingest something dangerous.
Characteristics of Rogue Online Pharmacies
First of all, legitimate, licensed online pharmacies won’t advertise nonexistent drugs, like “generic Viagra,” which will be unavailable in the United States until at least the year 2020. Generic Tamiflu is another lucrative fake that doesn’t exist. It’s easy enough to find out whether the drug you have been prescribed is available in the US in a generic form. You can look it up online, ask your doctor when he or she writes the prescription, or call up a pharmacy and ask.
Another thing you’ll see on shady online pharmacy websites is a price that is unrealistically low. If a site offers Viagra for a dollar per pill, you can bet it’s counterfeit. While many legitimate, licensed online pharmacies offer competitive prices on prescriptions, they’re just that: competitive, not illogical.
Statistics on Legitimate vs. Non-Legitimate Online Pharmacies
The World Health Organization estimates that more than half of all prescription drugs ordered online are counterfeit, containing either the wrong active ingredient altogether, or a much lower level of the active ingredient than the real thing.
A study by LegitScript.com estimated that around 71% of rogue online pharmacies register their domain names with only ten internet domain registrars, and over half of all non-legitimate pharmacies are registered with only two domain registrars. The registrar called Internet.bs registers one-third of the active rogue pharmacies in the entire world, and according to LegitScript. Forty-four percent of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy’s “not recommended” online pharmacies are registered with Internet.bs.
The Fake Avastin Scandal
In February 2012, counterfeit Avastin made it into the United States. Avastin is used to treat colorectal, lung, breast, renal, and ovarian cancers. The counterfeit drug did not have the active ingredient (bevacizumab) of real Avastin. The drug was imported to the US from the UK, and distributed by a wholesaler in Gainsboro, Tennessee. While doctors do not believe that any cancer patients were actually harmed by the counterfeit product, it is possible that one or more patients received IV treatment that did nothing when they thought they were getting Avastin.
A single vial of Avastin costs $2,500, and in 2011 the drug had nearly $3 billion in sales in the US, so it can be a lucrative product. The sentence for drug counterfeiting in the US is generally only around three years in prison. If you counterfeit money, however, you could be looking at 15 years behind bars.
The Appeal of Canadian Pharmacies
When you look at online pharmacies, one thing you’ll notice plenty of is Canadian flags. Rogue pharmacies know that people in the United States have a history of traveling to our neighbor up north to purchase prescription drugs at a discount and bring them back across the border. They also know that US residents generally trust Canadians, so it makes perfect sense for shady online pharmacies to pretend that they are Canadian.
There are also US residents who believe that importing drugs from Canada is legal, when in fact it is — technically, at least — illegal. US Customs and Border Protection generally looks the other way when a group of fixed-income senior citizens brings back personal quantities of prescription drugs purchased in Canada, but it is, in fact, illegal.
While your risk of prosecution is low when buying drugs from Canada, the truth is, there is no way to verify that the drugs you purchase have come from genuine manufacturers. When you purchase from online “Canadian” pharmacies you take an even bigger risk.
Your Legal Risks with Online Pharmacies (Particularly Overseas Pharmacies)
If you order prescription drugs from an online pharmacy in another country, you are breaking the law. Realistically, the chances of US Customs and Border Protection intercepting your shipment and going after you are small, but nonetheless, there is a real risk.
What the FDA Is Doing About Rogue Online Pharmacies
In September of this year, the FDA shut down over 20,000 illegal online pharmacies and seized over $10 million worth of drugs worldwide in a program called Operation Pangea V. Cooperation with Interpol and law enforcement agencies in over 100 countries led to the crackdown. However, the FDA is realistic: as soon as one illegal online pharmacy is shuttered, another always pops back up soon.
The Risks Are Simply Not Worth It
In conclusion, the risks of ordering prescription drugs from a non-US licensed online pharmacy are too high for any reasonable person to accept. The good news is you can safely and legally order prescription drugs online from US-licensed online pharmacies like eDrugstore.com. These pharmacies require a prescription from a licensed physician and contract with licensed pharmacists to dispense them. While you certainly won’t find “Viagra” for $1 per pill, you can find very competitive prices at legitimate online pharmacies, along with convenience, safety, and privacy – the main reasons people shop at online pharmacies in the first place.
Photo Credits: Rob Pearce, author screen shot, Daniel Borman, Vectorportal.com
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