Online Pharmacies & the Drug Trade

Online Pharmacies & the Drug Trade
by Amy O'Hare and Larry Dunn

Plenty of online pharmacies sell monitored substances, such as opiates, without a patient prescription. Commonly called ‘No Prescription Websites’ (NPW), and oftentimes misinterpreted as being illicit or illegal and are found through various persistent online searching strategies (Unnikrishnan). Popular keywords for such searches include: “online pharmacies no prescription” or “get drug no script”.

A 2008 study estimated the rising online drug trade at a record $12 billion, far surpassing any amount recorded before the turn of the century. The study also identified "fraudulent online pharmacies and business-to-business exchange sties," claiming that China had 31 percent of the sites, the US 26 percent, and India 19 percent. Of those three countries, India has become a major producer of pharmaceutical opiates, with over 25,000 pharmacies in a population of over a billion people (Charles). The industry began its growth to world status 1980s and 1990s. Opium and its derivatives, sanctioned for world health requirements and medical use, are typically manufactured through tight government control in India. The Indian government manages organizational production involving thousands of small farm poppy fields. The poppy field are presently managed in the two states of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. India actually exports over 70 percent of its raw opium mainly to the United States, Japan, France, and Sri Lanka.

No matter how tight the government control may be, the Internet enhances the growth of both licit and illicit online pharmacies of India's opium, allowing the advantages of rapid global communication and ready distribution, while offering competitively low prices. Detection and prosecution of the illicit sites remain increasingly difficult as it is virtually impossible to decipher many sites’ real origins, since the Internet can be used to mask identity. That's why it's so important to find a reliable online pharmacy because any website has the immediate ability to switch domain name servers and change their web addresses. Also, credit card companies and other forms of online payment enable money exchanges using globally disguised identities and sources.

Some of these online pharmacies, are legitimate and represent major global corporations, selling monitored substances to everyday consumers in Europe and the US. Some even require some form of account registration on the site, asking for email addresses. Most of them provide an Indian address and email contact address, at least. They were mainly gelled from online directories, upon which they themselves usually form layers of ad-search linking sites. A user, searching for online pharmacies, will sometimes land upon a "trade" site, which specifies the various pharmaceuticals by flags of the country of origin and a sample listing of their medications. A search engine on the page locates those companies in India that supply codeine, morphine, buprenorphine, and others.

I have an informative list of Indian pharmacies (both reliable and non-reliable), which includes the home site that will either show corporate headquarters in India or a temporary site asking for registration. A second ‘trade’ web is provided where the company has a summary report showing available an opiate derivative. Email me or leave a comment if interested in discussing these types of pharmacies.


Bibliography

Charles, Molly. Drug Trade Dynamics In India. 2003. Accessed May, 2009 at
http://laniel.free.fr/INDEXES/PapersIndex/INDIAMOLLY/DRUGSDYNAMICSININDIA.htm

Unnikrishnan, C.H. and Arathoon, M. Lax. Livemint.com. Sept 14, 2008. Accessed May, 2009 at http://www.livemint.com/2008/09/14235736/Lax-regulation-sees-India-beco.html