The DEA Diversion-Industry Communicator

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Publications > Newsletters > Communicator, Fall 1999 > In The News

The DEA Diversion-Industry Communicator

In The News

The June 21, 1999 Issue of U.S. News & World Report carried an article Joshua Fischman entitled "Drug Bazaar: Getting Medicine Off the Web is Easy, But Dangerous." With all of the hype about the Internet and the sites where anyone can obtain anything, U.S. News & World Report decide to investigate the accuracy of these claims. May people claim that the cost of purchasing pharmaceuticals over the Internet is substantially less than the traditional pharmacy; others claim that the privacy afforded by dealing with someone unseen and unknown is what drives the whole process. While still others have found that this is the perfect opportunity to obtain everything that they have ever wanted. No prescription; no doctor; just a computer, a credit card and a willing accomplice.

U.S. News & World Report was able to obtain a number of pharmaceuticals, both legend and controlled, from sites located in the United States and Overseas. Meridia, Phentermine, Prednisolone, Viagra, Inderal are just some of the products that came in the mail. Most of these sites did not require a prescription or the intervention of a physician, only an online questionnaire.

Unfortunately, by the time you added shipping and handling, the costs were significantly higher than those charged by the local traditional pharmacy. To further compound matters, many of the drugs arrived with little or no instruction and minimal labeling. Some even arrived in unmarked, clear plastic bags.

The article concludes by pointing out that Congress is planning hearings on Internet sales of pharmaceuticals. "The wide reach of the Internet is giving regulators fits. Internet drug sales are way over the heads of states to deal with on their own." "Internet drug marketing has every kind of potential for every kind of harm ever done to anyone through drug misuse and it’s amazing how few people have grasped this."

For more on drugs see U.S News Online at
http://www.usnews.com

In September of 1999, both the Miami Herald and the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel carried articles about a major seizure of Ketamine. After a routine traffic stop and voluntary vehicle search, officers from the Miami-Dade Police discovered 11,000 vials of Ketamine, an veterinary anesthetic popular in the rave club scene. This seizure is being touted as the largest ever. Street value is placed at more than four million dollars for the estimated 55,000 doses.

Sgt Bonnie Barnard of the Indian State Police sent several article from local Indiana papers that chronicle the work being done by investigators in her area:

Bourbon pharmacist Robert Hill insists he was merely trying to help ease someone’s pain when he sold legend and scheduled drugs to an undercover officer without a valid prescription. He now faces 22 drug charges including eight counts of unlawfully selling a legend drug and eight counts of dealing in a Schedule II controlled substance. While pending the outcome of his trial, Mr. Hill has retained his license to dispense prescription drugs, excluding scheduled and controlled substances that have the potential to be addictive.
A routine traffic stop by a Madison County Police officer netted nearly 20 grams of MDA, 70 Valium tablets and a small cache of marijuana. The suspect was stopped for driving erratically and doing 70 mph in a 55 mph zone. A consensual search of the vehicle revealed the contraband. The driver was released on $40,000 bond.
A New Albany physician was arrested and charged with 38 counts of illegally dealing in controlled substances, issuing invalid prescriptions and related offenses. The majority of the counts involve an undercover officer obtaining prescriptions without an examination. The allegation is that the doctor accepted cash payments from the undercover officer for prescriptions that were issued to people that weren’t present. The doctor was released on $50,000 bond.
Thirteen-year Terre Haute City Councilman Bill Thompson appeared in court on felony charges that he altered prescriptions for drugs. Thompson is alleged to have obtained three prescriptions at a walk-in clinic for Fioricet to treat his headache pain. By the time he reached the pharmacy to negotiate the prescriptions, they were for Fiorinal with codeine. The pharmacist examined the prescriptions and suspecting that they had been altered, contacted the issuing physician. Thompson voluntarily surrendered to the court where he entered a plea of not guilty. He is free on $1,000 bail awaiting trial.
NOTICE: Web Site Addresses contained in this document were correct at the time of publication. They may no longer be valid.

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