- Friday, 10 July 2009
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Litigation is a machine which you go into as a pig and come out as a sausage - Ambrose Bierce, allegedly
Interpol cracks down on illegal online meds
IN A FIRST OF ITS kind raid, Interpol coordinated a sting which saw police in nine different countries raid businesses thought to be selling medicines illegally online.
Police raided locations in the UK, Germany, Ireland, Israel, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, Canada and the US in operation Pangea, Wednesday night, the first time an international action of this scale has been carried out by Interpol.
It’s not the first time Interpol has raised concern about the amount of prescription drugs and medicines being sold on the Internet, especially as many are either poor quality or fakes, making them particularly dangerous.
Head of the Interpol op, Danny Lee-Frost, noted, "If you are illegally selling or supplying medicines [online], we will use all appropriate measures available to stop you."
Bizarrely, it’s believed a very large percentage of drugs sold online are of prescription nature, whilst ecstasy, cocaine, cannabis and heroin make up only a minority of orders.
Spam mails advertising anything from anti impotency, to anti hair loss, to anti obesity, and anti man boob growth drugs, have found a huge market willing to cough up, and the often difficult to trace suppliers are causing healthcare regulators serious headaches.
In the UK, over a thousand packets of unlicensed medicines were seized by police from 12 separate properties, along with PCs and documents. µ
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Note the careful wording of "illegal sales of drugs" as opposed to "sales of illegal drugs".

This is really about the drug companies wanting to sell the exact same thing at wildly different prices based on where you live. 

If the red herrings of low quality, fakes, and street drugs are real, let's see some real statistics. (As opposed to RIAA fantasy numbers.)

Sure seems odd that the coppers are all about busting people for selling prescription drugs online but don't pause for a second to ponder just why there is such a large demand.

Maybe its because lack of health insurance makes sanctioned avenues of purchase too prohibitive?

Or maybe even having health coverage isn't enough to afford many of these prescriptions?

Or maybe it has nothing to do with health insurance, maybe its because people are self-diagnosing, for better or for worse.

Either way, cracking down on distributors is bound to have just as much success as the war on the other drugs.
A cynical mind might wonder if this doesn't have more to do with the big boys in the medicine selling business using interpol to protect their lucrative 8000% profit margin on meds, rather than concern with the consumers.
But either way, if it knocks the bread out of spammer's mouth I'm OK with it I guess.