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Online drug peddling - Just a click away

By Beth Quinn
Times Herald-Record

If you want to fall through Alice's looking glass, get onto the Internet and type "buy Valium" into the Google search engine.
More than 933,000 sites pop up. Many of them say, "No prescription required."
Try typing in "buy Zoloft." More than a million sites.
Try Rush Limbaugh's drug of choice, Oxycontin, a major narcotic in the morphine family. The drug is sold on the street by dealers and used by addicts. "Buy Oxycontin" yields 146,000 sites.
I bought it.
I bought Oxycontin, Valium and more. Online. Without a prescription.
My shopping spree took me to a phony doctor outside of San Antonio, Texas, and a supplier farther south in Tijuana, Mexico. I got packages of drugs delivered to my home from the South Pacific island of Vanuatu. I've got a supplier in Thailand now, and another pal in England. At least, I think he's in England.
All of this without leaving my home. And, in some cases, it was as easy as one-click shopping at Amazon.com.
Come with me, and I'll show you the bizarre world of drugs that I discovered while sipping tea as I shopped online.

IT WAS all the spam that got me started. Six months ago, I began receiving at least a dozen e-mails a day inviting me to buy drugs online without a prescription.
Discreet Online Pharmacy, said one subject line. Stop Your Stress Now! said another. Rx – Vicodin is HERE. And Your Trusted Viagra Source, Overnight Delivery.
Doctors get years of training before they're entrusted with a prescription pad. Was it really possible that any idiot could now self-prescribe? I went online to find out.
I bought the Valium first.
I picked a site at random, and ended up at buymeds.com. This, as it turns out, is the only U.S.-based Web site that I ordered from. It was also the only one that went through a pretense of having a doctor look over my order before approving it.
I placed an order for 30 5-mg. Valium tablets using a Visa credit card.
Before approving my purchase, buymeds.com asked me to fill out a little medical questionnaire. They wanted to know my age, sex and if I was allergic to anything. They wanted to know why I wanted the Valium.
I said I was feeling a bit edgy.
I got an e-mail confirmation that my order would be processed after a doctor approved it.
That's when it got interesting.
A few days later, on Thanksgiving, I got an e-mail from the "doctor."
Hi, this is Dr. Lopez. I was unable to reach you by phone. I just need to ask you some questions about your medical history, when you can, please call me at 830-708-0629, you may call me on Thursday since I'll be home all day and night, thanks.
I tried calling Dr. Lopez at what turned out to be a voice mailbox with a phone exchange near San Antonio, Texas.
But I couldn't leave a message. The voice mailbox was full.
I e-mailed him instead. Can we do this by e-mail, I asked.
He responded: OK, I need your actual name.
My actual name? I told him I'd been using my actual name all along. I was tempted to add, And I need your actual profession, but I restrained myself.
He wanted to know about my past Valium use. I said I once borrowed some from a friend. Good enough for Dr. Lopez. He approved it.
The Valium arrived five days later by Fed Ex. The prescription had been filled by a Houston pharmacy, SafeGuard/Rx. The pills were in an amber pharmacy bottle with a child-guard cap.
Safety first, I guess.
Dr. Peter Lopez's name was on the label as the prescribing physician.
The thing is, there's no Dr. Peter Lopez in Texas, according to the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners. There's a physician assistant by that name, though.
But, uh oh. The physician assistant Peter Lopez doesn't have a license in Texas. He lost it May 2 when he failed to pay his annual licensing fee.
He doesn't even have an office located in Texas. His home is in Middletown, Conn., as far as the Medical Board knows.
And he's now under investigation because I blew the whistle on him. So is the pharmacy in Houston, which opened for business in March. Pharmacies in Texas aren't supposed to fill prescriptions unless there's a doctor-patient relationship.
In this case, there's no doctor. And Peter and I can't possibly have a relationship given that I'm in New York and he's؅Øwell, who knows where he is.
Anyway, I got the Valium.

I WENT for a whole menu of random drugs at the next site, inhousepharmacy.com. This place didn't even pretend to have a doctor looking at my order. There was no medical questionnaire. There were no questions of any kind except which credit card would I be using.
I ordered some Viagra for penile dysfunction and, to make it interesting, I also ordered the injectable birth control product Depo Provera – with the syringe. While I was at it, I ordered some Dilantin for epilepsy and some Celebrex for the pain of arthritis.
They charged $143 to my Visa card and sent me a perky confirmation e-mail. Thanks for your order! they said. My order number was 166144.
The drugs and syringe arrived by air mail a week later. The package was labeled "health products" on the outside. The drugs were still sealed in what appeared to be original pharmaceutical packaging from a company called Pharmacia.
They had been mailed from Vanuatu.
If you're like me, you never heard of Vanuatu, so I looked it up on the Internet. It's a chain of islands in the South Pacific.
You'd think that a South Pacific island would have a picture of the ocean on its Web page, huh. Not this one.
Its main tourist attraction is a list of law firms that specialize in setting up off-shore businesses. "Privacy" is its promise.
You can, apparently, do anything you want on the island of Vanuatu and they'll never tell on you.

I GOT ripped off on the Oxycontin.
It's actually a bit harder to buy narcotics online than other drugs, probably because they're controlled substances and people go to jail for selling them.
To get Oxycontin, I needed a middleman. I picked the Web site themedshop.com.
For $99.95, this site gave me preferred customer status for a year. This means they provided me with a long list of "premium pharmacies" in Europe, Mexico and Asia, which would be happy to provide me with my narcotic of choice – Oxycontin, morphine, opium, you name it.
These "premium pharmacies" don't have Web sites. They have hotmail addresses.
I picked one at random and sent a customer inquiry to
Themedshop.com referred me to you, I wrote. I'm seeking your price list and ordering procedure for Oxycontin.
Two days later, I got a response: Oxycontin 80 mg 1 tab $70US plus 15 percent shipping.
I was to send the money via Western Union to Misael Rodriguez Sanchez in Tijuana, Mexico. When he got the money, he was to e-mail me the UPS tracking number for my purchase.
Well, I did it. I sent Misael $85 for one tab of Oxycontin plus shipping. I wired it from the Western Union desk at Hannaford's in the Town of Wallkill. I've got to say I felt a little seamy sending $85 to Tijuana, Mexico, but the women behind the counter were real nice to me. They didn't know they were dealing with a criminal.
I went home and sent Misael an e-mail with the Western Union number so he could pick up the money.
He wrote back to say he got it: OK, I will send the UPS tracking number ASAP, he promised.
That was on Dec. 4. Alas, it is the last contact I've had from Misael.
I e-mailed him once more. Where's my stuff? I asked. But I've been met with stony silence. It appears I've been jilted. What a surprise.

TWO OTHER companies also wanted to do business by Western Union, but I drew the line after being burned by Misael.
I tried ordering some anabolic steroids from 1anabolic-steroids.com, but they said they'd ship them anywhere in the world except the U.S. Instead, I decided to buy some tamoxifen, a drug used in the treatment of breast cancer.
They would have sent it, too, except my Visa card company declined approval. I was advised by the 1anabolic-steroid.com people that I should call my credit card company and verbally instruct them to approve it. Either that or I could send money by Western Union to Mr. Prakij Klongking in Klongton, Thailand.
Well, I didn't know Prakij any better than I knew Misael, so I decided against sending him my money.
The same thing happened when I tried ordering Zoloft from pharmacymex.com. My credit card company didn't want to do business with them, either. In this case, my alternative was to wire money to David Rosales Herrera in Tijuana, Mexico. I took a pass.
I wonder if David is pals with Misael. In fact, I wonder if maybe he is Misael. Or maybe he's really Peter Lopez, the unlicensed physician assistant. I must e-mail Peter and ask.
Meanwhile, I'm ditching the drugs. Child-guard caps or not, I'd feel safer sitting in the middle of a firing range than popping pills from Vanuatu.

What's available
Diazepam (generic Valium)
-Ordered from: buymeds.com
-Amount: 30 5-mg tablets
-Cost online: $128.70
-Pharmacy cost: $8.54
-Use: management of anxiety disorders
-Warnings: addictive; should not be taken by patients with acute narrow-angle glaucoma or used with alcohol, anticonvulsants or psychotropic medications

Zoloft (generic)
-Ordered from: pharmacymex.com
-Amount: 50 25-mg tablets
-Cost online: $49
-Pharmacy cost: $136.31 for brand name; generic not available
-Use: treatment of major depression, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder
-Warnings: prescriptions should be written in small quantities to reduce risk of overdose or suicide

Celebrex
-Ordered from: inhouseparmacy.com
-Amount: 60 100-mg tablets
-Cost online: $48
-Pharmacy cost: $108.49
-Use: management of acute pain and pain associated with arthritis
-Warnings: lowest effective dose should be taken for shortest possible period to reduce risk for gastro-intestinal bleeding, ulceration or perforation

Depo-Provera (with syringe)
-Ordered from: inhousepharmacy.com
-Amount: 1 vial, 50-mg dose
-Cost online: $46
-Pharmacy cost: not available in 50-mg dose; dispensed in 100-mg doses ($46.21/5 vials) or 150-mg doses ($57.88/5 vials)
-Use: contraceptive injection
-Warnings: should not be taken by patients who may be pregnant or have blood clots, heart disease, liver disease, certain cancers, hypertension, diabetes, or certain types of headache

Viagra
-Ordered from: inhousepharmacy.com
-Amount: four 50-mg tablets
-Cost: $71
-Pharmacy cost: $41.96
-Use: treatment of erectile dysfunction
-Warnings: risk of heart attack during sexual activity in those with cardiac conditions and/or taking nitroglycerin

Dilantin
-Ordered from: inhousepharmacy.com
-Amount: 200 30-mg capsules
-Cost: $24
-Pharmacy cost: $54.93
-Use: to control grand-mal seizures
-Warnings: can cause birth defects, such as cleft palate, heart malformations, microcephaly and mental retardation

Nolvadex (a brand of tamoxifen)
-Ordered from: 1anabolic-steroids.com
-Amount: 30 20-mg tablets
-Cost: $69
-Pharmacy cost: $126.41
-Use: treatment of breast cancer
-Warnings: can cause certain types of uterine cancer

Oxycontin
-Ordered from: an e-mail address ([email protected])
-Amount: 1 80-mg tablet
-Cost: $85
-Pharmacy cost: $13.76
-Use: treatment of moderate to severe pain
-Warnings: a highly addictive Schedule II controlled substance; an overdose can kill; breaking the tablets before taking can be fatal because absorption is speeded up

Sources: The Physician Desk Reference, online Web sites and AccuCare Pharmacy, Middletown

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