Lack of awareness of drugs black market

In a concerted crackdown on the sale of black market medicines last week, gardaí and customs officials uncovered over 192,000 different types of fake medicines, worth over €600,000, with the help of Interpol and some 200 national drug bodies.

This was the haul for just one week.

The whole thing is evidence that this dangerous trade is growing at an alarming rate. Last year 121,000 fake medicines were seized, with an estimated value of €375,000, which means that there has been an increase of 60% in just one year. The internet has developed into a lucrative tool for unscrupulous business people.

The World Health Organisation recently estimated that the online trade of counterfeit drugs is worth as much as €70bn annually on a global basis.

The criminals behind this trade can earn more from selling counterfeit medicines than they can earn from selling the same amount of cocaine.

Many of the medicines being traded online have been found to contain too little or too much of the necessary active ingredients. Some have been found to contain none at all.

Those purchasing these medicines have been squandering their money and endangering their health. People would not buy medicine off some sleazy looking character on a darkened street corner, but this is in effect what they are doing while buying on the internet. Many do not realise that criminal gangs are running some of the websites, and this is likely to get worse.

These criminals are the same kind of people who sell addictive drugs to unsuspecting young people in the hope of hooking them on the drug so that they will then pay exorbitant prices for the stuff. People should also recognise that many legitimate business people in this country are responsible, because it is their greed that has prompted people to turn to the Internet for their medication.

According to the Economic and Social Research Institute, drug prices are far higher in this country than in other countries. Hence, unsuspecting people have been turning online to buy their medicines in the mistaken belief that these are the same medicines that they require. They are essentially being duped into this sleazy market.

This is not a new phenomenon. Levels of drug addiction were much higher in the 1890s than they are today, because the drug industry was largely unregulated. Unscrupulous medicine men were peddling tonics and potions, laced with opiates. They promised to cure all kinds of illnesses, but people soon found themselves addicted to those potions.

Such practices were largely stamped out with the drug legislation introduced around the turn of the century. Medicines have been highly regulated since then, but the internet has developed into a totally unregulated source. People should be aware of the horrific dangers of purchasing medicines from such unregulated sources, and governments should strive to ensure that this problem is tackled properly.