Online drug sales put lives in danger

The Irish Medicines Board has warned that people are putting their lives in danger by taking illegal and fake medicines after it emerged there had been a 60% rise in seizures of sedatives last year.

In all, more than 750,000 doses, including weight loss and erectile dysfunction medication, were intercepted by authorities during 2012. While the total number of doses was slightly down on 2011, from 762,641 to 758,276, there was a massive increase in the number of sedatives, such as diazepam, which were intercepted, up from 153,483 to 246,951 units.

Other fake medicines seized included 52,089 doses of erectile dysfunction medication and 153,042 for weight loss. The bulk of the medicines were imported from China or India.