Hundreds of packets of medicine have been seized by Customs in one week. Why are so many Irish people buying drugs online?
EVERY DAY tens of millions of unsolicited e-mails are sent out from computers all over the world selling cheap drugs to help lose weight, ease anxiety or treat erectile dysfunction. And every day thousands of people, many of whom are vulnerable and struggling with self-esteem issues, convince themselves these e-mails are the answers to their troubles.
Buying and selling prescription medicines online is not only illegal in the Republic, it is also potentially dangerous. “Counterfeit and illegal medicines pose a serious and potentially fatal threat to public health,” says Pat O’Mahony, chief executive of the Irish Medicines Board (IMB).
Criminal gangs are often behind the sale of counterfeit medicines, he adds, so buying online puts people at risk of identity theft and credit-card fraud.
While the board, An Garda Síochána and the Revenue’s customs service police the trade as best they can, it is like trying to hold back the tide.
Earlier this week the IMB released details of the role it played in the latest global operation to target the sale of online drugs. Drugs worth more than €5 million were recovered and 13,495 websites were shut down as a result of an operation that involved law-enforcement agencies, national medicines boards, internet service providers and providers of payment systems.
In the Republic, 51,621 tablets, capsules and creams, with an estimated value of more than €150,000, were recovered after 492 packages were seized in one week.
The probability is that these are a small fraction of the drugs bought online.
Ireland is among the most expensive countries in the EU for buying pharmaceutical products, and price gaps of more than 50 per cent between the costs here and elsewhere in Europe are not uncommon, but price is not the motivating factor for most of the online trade in prescription drugs. The medicines most frequently impounded include mood stabilisers, weight-loss tablets and drugs for erectile dysfunction.
Last year saw an increase of almost 500 per cent in the volume of drugs the authorities detained, after being bought online by Irish consumers, that purport to help with weight-loss.
Illegal weight-loss products are of particular concern because many contain the active substance sibutramine, which can increase the risk of heart attack or stroke.
Research carried out on behalf of the IMB shows the top three reasons people buy drugs online are price, privacy and convenience, but the profile of the drugs suggests that embarrassment is also an issue.
It should not be like this, says Darragh O’Loughlin, a Galway-based pharmacist and the head of the Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU).
He says the dangers of self-medication and the problems of people exposing them to counterfeit drugs made most frequently in China, India and Thailand. The fake drugs are not the only problem, he says. People who buy from legitimate pharmacies based overseas are also at risk.
Online pharmacies in the US are legitimate and well-established, but not problem-free. Repeated studies have found that people who buy drugs online, even through legitimate channels that insist on seeing a prescription, are more likely to have an adverse reaction that ends in hospitalisation than those who buy in a bricks-and-mortar pharmacy.
“If you buy drugs online you have no human interaction, and so no one is in a position to keep an eye on you,” O’Loughlin says.
Stephen McMahon of the Irish Patients Association also warns against the dangers of buying online but says online pharmacies may play a role in the future. “If you have highly regulated pharmacies that only accept authenticated prescriptions and have supply channels that are full traceable, then that might be the future,” he says.
“I still don’t want to take away from the serious risks posed by buying drugs online.You don’t know where the drugs are coming from, and while you think you are buying from a Spanish pharmacy, the drugs could come from anywhere in the world,” he says.
McMahon stresses that, while the authorities are doing a great job, more needs to be done to deal with the issue and a joined-up approach is needed.
“I find it hard to believe that there is an interdepartmental approach to looking at copyright issues on behalf of U2, but when it come to patient care and online drugs there is no similar approach.”
