Pharmacy chiefs take on online drugs trade

PHARMACY regulators are setting up a task force to combat the menace of medicines available over the internet following an Irish Examiner investigation.

The Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland (PSI) yesterday announced the measure after investigating how the newspaper easily obtained prescription drugs in the post from rogue internet sites abroad.

In April, the Irish Examiner published the results of a two-month investigation into the online drugs trade after ordering and receiving 10 popular medicines — without a legal prescription or even seeing a doctor.

Medicines, including the sex drug Viagra, weight loss medication and anti-depressants, came in the post from as far away as Fiji and the island of Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean with poor instructions or none at all.

The PSI said it was deeply concerned about the easy availability of prescription drugs on the net as sales of medicines are tightly controlled through High Street chemists in Ireland.

PSI spokesman Jackie Gallagher said yesterday: “The society is setting up a working group looking at the whole area of internet pharmacies and the issues that have been highlighted by the Irish Examiner.

“The Irish Examiner has raised a topic that is in the public interest and has proved how easy it is to do it (obtain medicines via the internet).

“We were sufficiently concerned about the Examiner’s findings that we are setting up this working party, which will forward its findings to Tánaiste and Health Minister Mary Harney,” she said.

Medics, pharmacists and the Irish Medicines Board warn patients against purchasing medicine online as buyers can never be sure if they are obtaining genuine medication.

Last week reports in Britain revealed a pensioner in Sunderland, in north-east England, went blind after taking steroids she bought off a Thailand-based internet pharmacy.

The PSI has studied the Examiner’s dossier of evidence, receipts and papers from the investigation and is also chemically testing the medicines purchased by the paper.

Members of the task force will consult gardaí, customs and the Irish Medicines Board (IMB), which licenses all medications available in Ireland.

Although the law prohibits people from buying medicines online without a prescription, the task force wants to find out what extra can be done to stop medicines reaching Ireland’s shores from abroad.

Of the 11 medicines ordered online by the Irish Examiner, the paper received 10 at its Cork offices, with one consignment of the tranquilliser valium believed to have been seized by customs officials.

The paper’s investigation also revealed the lengths to which online pharmacies will go to disguise their parcels as gifts or innocent packages so that the packets escape being detected by customs or gardaí.