Buying drugs online: How safe is it?

So, you are determined to do something about your dwindling sex drive or performance, or could it be that flabby tummy that has you worried? You decide to ‘shop’ online for drugs to address the challenge.

Phentermine is dubbed as “the best weight-loss diet medication ever”, according to websites that sell it, while Viagra can be posted to you without a prescription. And so, without checking with your doctor, you go ahead to make the purchase and ingest the medication.

A colleague recently shared an experience where one of her patients died after taking diet pills purchased online and as it becomes increasingly evident that more and more individuals are buying prescription drugs online, the question becomes: Is there a safe way to do this?

Granted, as with just about any other product, buying prescription drugs online can produce significant savings. Further, online pharmacies represent a lot of promise. Standing at the intersection of technology and health care, safe online pharmacies are very convenient.

However, the challenge becomes establishing which is the legitimate online pharmacy. A study by the European Alliance for Access to Safe Medicines reported that 62 per cent of prescription products bought online were fake, substandard or unapproved.

The problem is, while only about two to three per cent of all Internet pharmacies meet standards for safety and legality, about 90 per cent are outright illegal, selling prescription drugs without a valid prescription, offering unregulated and potentially unsafe pharmaceuticals and/ or lacking required pharmacy licences.

Fact is, the rogue Internet pharmacy market is a multi-billion-dollar trade. These shady websites’ mission is not to help others but to turn a pro?t even if it means putting people and pets at risk.

If you still want to deal with more than just your local chemist, then use websites that have registered pharmacies. This means they have a physical address with a phone number so you can speak to a pharmacist.

Go to sites like LegitScript and PharmacyChecker.com, which have built businesses around verifying the legitimacy of online pharmacies.