Online pharmacy weblog

Linda Surks remembers her son Jason as a good-natured kid who made
friends easily. “He was always compliant and accommodating, and just a
real pleasant person,” she said.

So when Linda and her husband, Mark, got a call telling them their son
Jason, a 19-year-old sophomore at Rutgers University, was in the
hospital, they had no idea what to expect.

“We thought he had come down with something and really didn’t have any
idea when we got to the hospital,” Surks said.

They were told their son had died of a drug overdose.

“It was a double whammy,” she explained. “To hear that your child has
passed away, but to hear it happened the way it did was a total shock.
I had no clue he was abusing.”

That’s because Jason didn’t buy typical street drugs from some corner
dealer. He got his fix from the Internet, the latest front in the war
on drugs.

“After we collected his belongings from the university we went through
his computer and we found some Mexican pharmacy Web sites that he had
visited,” Surks said. “We also found some evidence of an account that
he had with one of these pharmacies.”

Jason’s death was a tragic irony for Linda, who works for the National
Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. “I work in prevention,” she
said. “That’s a pretty telling statement to have to make — that I
know what to look for, I know how to talk to my kids about drugs and
he really kept it very well hidden from us.”

Lethal and Addictive

What most young people don’t know is that prescription drugs like
Xanax, when abused, can be as addictive and lethal as heroin.

“There’s no fear of prescription drugs,” said Steve Liga, executive
director of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence of
Middlesex County, N.J.

Liga said the Internet has the potential to change the way the younger
generation gets hooked on drugs. “What we used to see before the
Internet was that prescription drugs were a later-stage addiction,” he
explained. These users typically worked their way up through
marijuana, cocaine and heroin, and were considered hardcore addicts
who stole their drugs from a pharmacy or diverted them from a doctor.

“What’s happening now with the Internet is that it’s almost flipped,”
Liga said. “We have people who never dreamed of using heroin or
cocaine, but they have no problem taking an Adderall.”

Impossible to Trace

Law enforcement agencies now face the daunting task of taking down
dealers who are almost impossible to trace, because they conduct their
business and then disappear into cyberspace.

In just a few years, the number of Web sites selling potentially
dangerous drugs without a prescription has increased exponentially.
Right now, you can buy drugs like OxyContin, Vicodin, and Xanax with
your credit card from more than 1,000 Web sites and have them
delivered directly to your door. And they are the real thing.

So how easy is it to get to one of these sites? Do you have to be a
savvy insider? Drug Enforcement Administration agent Tim Stover took
“Nightline” on a tour of the Internet-based drug world.

Agent Stover started with a simple Web search of “no prescription
hydrocodon,” which quickly yielded 141,000 listings. He then
demonstrated how easy it was to submit an order. After selecting the
drugs he wanted to purchase, he was asked to answer 10 simple
questions and was then asked to submit his credit card information.

“From the time that we put our answers in here we’ve had drugs that
we’ve ordered — at 2 o’clock in the afternoon on a Thursday –
delivered to us at 10 a.m. on Friday,” said Stover. “So it’s a very
quick, very efficient process.”

It’s as easy as ordering a book online: Prescription-strength drugs
are available without a prescription. All you need is a credit card
and a craving. And you don’t even have to muster the courage to deal
with someone face to face who may want to hurt you.

“It’s all done from the comfort of your home,” explained Stover, “and
… the anonymity of the Internet.”

In other words, you can potentially buy these drugs online without
ever exposing who you really are. And aggressive advertising in the
form of pop-ups, cookies and mass e-mails means you don’t even have to
search for the Web sites online; they will come to you.

A Massive Operation

It’s a huge operation with no bricks and mortar involved. There are no
buildings or person-to-person meetings because it’s all done
digitally. The dealers collect the information online, package the
drugs, and send them out via overnight delivery.

“I mean, literally, people can do this and perpetuate these crimes
throughout the world,” said Stover.

Many of these Web sites are located in countries like Ukraine, Latvia
and Mexico, where it’s perfectly legal to buy and sell these drugs
without prescriptions. So, even if law enforcement could find the
dealers, they couldn’t arrest them.

That’s why the DEA has successfully tracked and busted only a few
Internet prescription-drug trafficking rings.

In Texas a recent drug bust resulted in a number of indictments. Soon
after, there was a noticeable drop in activity on related Web sites.
But within weeks, the online ads were back. And to be sure, business
is booming again.

“It’s because of the anonymity, because of the ease of putting up
these Web sites and taking them down, because of the global nature of
the Internet, and how they can move money, and move information,”
Stover said.

“It’s tremendously challenging.”

Supply and Demand

Historically, attempts at decreasing the supply of drugs have rarely
worked. Growers, manufacturers and dealers always find new ways to
produce and distribute drugs, so experts realize it is important to
work on decreasing the demand.

“The Internet blew the lid off prescription drugs,” said Liga, of the
National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. “It’s a new
phenomenon and there isn’t any research to say what works and what
doesn’t.” When it comes to prevention, Liga teaches students that
prescription drug abuse is serious, and he hopes they will spread the
word to their friends.