Congress Wants To Restrict Some Internet Sales
3 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // June 24th, 2008 // 1:42 pm
The bi-partisan House bill aims to stop rogue pharmacies operating on the Internet, particularly those selling controlled substances without a valid prescription, and is a companion to a bill already introduced in the Senate.
In announcing the Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act, the lawmakers pointed to a Government Accountability Office study that obtained 68 samples of 11 different drugs from different web sites, and found that 45 online pharmacies provided a prescription based on their own medical questionnaire or had no prescription requirement at all. Among the drugs GAO obtained without a prescription were those with special safety restrictions and highly addictive narcotic painkillers.
“Hundreds of sites are selling, or offering to sell, controlled substances to almost anybody without a prescription and little action has been taking so far to address the problem,” says Bart Stupak, a Michigan Democrat, who introduced the bill along with two Republicans - Lamar Smith of Texas and Mary Bono Mack of California. Haight died at the age of 18 from an overdose of painkillers, including Vicodin, he ordered over the Internet at age 17 without a legitimate prescription.
The legislation would amend the Controlled Substances Act to counter the growing sale of controlled substances over the Internet without adequate medical oversight. As envisioned, the bill would bar the sale or distribution of all controlled substances (Schedule I, II, III, IV and V drugs) via the Internet without a valid prescription.
In addition, it would require online pharmacists to display info identifying the business, the pharmacists and any physician associated with the website providing the drugs; clarify that pharmacies that continue to operate outside the law will be governed by the current federal penalties against illegal distributions; increase the penalties for all illegal distributions of controlled substances classified as Schedule III, IV or V substances, and create a new federal cause of action that would allow a state attorney general to shut down a rogue site selling controlled substances in any state.
Alex Coolman
It’s worth mentioning that a version of this bill has been unsuccessfully introduced several times in the last couple years. Google “Ryan Haight Act” to see the background.
John Peters
It’s also worth thinking why people are turning to cheap(er) painkillers from online pharmacies in the first place.
Realists will be right and cynics wrong to say that much is purchased and then sold on the black market.
The real focusis that patients in pain, require aggressive and continuing pain management solutions, to afford them some QOL - wherever their meds come from. Anyone who has been in pain or who lives with/looks after someone with chronic pain knows this oh so well.
If restrictions on docs, and from Health Plans and indeed doc concerns about potentially being witch hunted as drug pushers do not allow for creative and modulated prescribing, then patients will find their own ways to try to find some semblance of a normal life.
Sam
It seems strange to me that if you are a legitimate pharmacy in a State
you must be compliant with that State’s and Federal controlled
substance and DEA laws and regulations. We question patients if
they use up too many doses in a shorter time period than they were
suppose to last. They will offer to pay cash instead of using their
insurance which has rejected their refill request. We refuse the cash
offer because this customer is clearly abusing the use of the drug.
When a new patient comes in for a narcotic Rx we are suspicious when the patient lives 10 miles from our pharmacy and goes 40 miles to the doctor to get the Rx. There must be at least 30 pharmacies closer to where they live.
The public does not realize how many phony prescriptions are
brought to local pharmacies. Local pharmacies share this information
and contact the physician whose Rx blank is being used.
Internet pharmacies must be registered by a Federal Agency and must
be just as compliant to State laws and regulation of that State and
FDA and DEA regulations. They should also be professionally
responsible to prevent the abuse of these drugs.
Continuing pain management should not be managed by the patient,
but by their physician.