High cost of drugs sees rise in sale of fake pills

The high cost of legitimate drugs is forcing a record number of people to gamble with their lives by seeking out cheaper black market medications online.

A leading patients’ body made the claim after a joint Garda, Revenue, and Interpol operation made one of the biggest counterfeit drugs seizures in Irish history.

Between Jun 18 and 25, a Europe-wide crackdown on the sale of black market medications found more than 192,000 types of illegal drugs in Irish border searches.

The potentially dangerous medications — which range from tranquillisers and steroids to erectile dysfunction and weight-loss tablets — were seized last week and are estimated to be worth €612,000.

While the black market drugs — which often help to fund crime gangs — can be dangerous as they regularly do not have the correct dosage levels or are labelled as something they are not, officials said this has not put people off from risking their health to save money.

And, coming on the back of Tuesday’s warning from the Economic and Social Research Institute that this country’s drug prices are far higher than other nations, the Irish Patients’ Association said prices — not ignorance — are forcing people to buy illegally online.

“This is driven by a number of factors, including economic. People think they can go online and get medications cheaper,” IPA chairman Stephen McMahon — who is also patient advocate on a Council of Europe group tasked with addressing the problem — explained.

“It’s getting to the stage where 1kg of counterfeit medicine is more valuable than 1kg of cocaine, because more people are going online to dodgy websites and avoiding their GP,” he said.

Since 2008, the Garda, customs officials, Interpol, and 200 national drug regulator bodies including the Irish Medicines Board have joined forces annually over a week-long period to expose and highlight the reality of the online drugs trend.

This year’s targeted timeline — which was switched from November to June after concerns it was becoming predictable for gangs — saw 192,061 medications seized which had a total cost of €612,000.

Both figures are the highest found in the six years of the Irish section of the cross-European operation, and 60% higher than last year’s rates of 121,000 and €375,000 respectively.

In 2011, just 51,600 products with a predicted price of €150,000 were uncovered.

“Consumers must recognise that they are placing their own health in very real danger,” said IMB chief executive Pat O’Mahony.

“Some of these medicines have been shown to contain too little or too much of the active ingredient, while others contain the wrong active ingredient altogether.

“Furthermore, purchasers should also be aware they may be exposing their personal financial details and identity to criminal networks that are behind the online sale of counterfeit, falsified and illegally supplied medicines,” he said.

The latest Europe-wide raids led to 58 arrests worldwide and the shutting down of 9,610 websites linked to black market drugs.

Two as-yet unnamed websites with Irish IP addresses look set to be shut down for similar connections to the counterfeit medicines world.