Valium / Diazepam News Blog

THOUSANDS of consumers are playing 'Russian roulette' with their lives by buying prescription drugs online which may be laced with poisonous chemicals, experts warned yesterday.

The Trading Standards Institute has reported a boom in such sales as people increasingly turn to the Internet to self-diagnose and medicate their ailments.

But it said those who buy from foreign websites risk getting pills containing deadly chemicals, including mercury and motor oil derivatives.

Some pills even contain brick dust as their batches are produced in cement mixers, officials claim.

Investigators who ordered pills from foreign websites found that, even when the drugs turned out to be genuine, batches would arrive with no supplier or dosage instructions, putting users at risk of overdose.

In one case, the powerful fertility drug Clomid was sold online, no questions asked, and dispatched in a jiffy bag without instructions.

This was done despite the fact that overuse of the drug can cause ovarian cancer and another ovarian disease that can be fatal.

In other cases, customers have reported that the drugs they ordered never arrived.

As health information is easily available on the Internet, experts claim that more people are self-diagnosing and seeking medication online instead of waiting for a hospital appointment for a prescription.

The pills bought include Viagra, Tamiflu, Prozac and Diazepam, also known as Valium.

The surge in demand has been seized on by criminal gangs who are now selling fake pills online as well as touting them in pubs and clubs around the UK.

In April this year, police raids on 14 properties in London, Staffordshire, Peterborough and Brighton found that organised criminal gangs trading weapons and class A drugs were also dealing in counterfeit prescription pills.

'It's becoming a big business, but the consequences are frightening.

'We have been horrified with the sorts of things that are available. Some of these came through the post in foreign languages or no labels.

'They could have been rat poison for all we knew. There were no dosage instructions. These people could die from swallowing just one tablet. They are playing Russian roulette with their lives.' The sale of medicines in the UK is regulated by the Medicines Act 1968 but overseas suppliers are not subject to these controls.

In 2004, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency investigated 36 sites selling fake medicine, but now there are over 100 investigations ongoing.

Mike Deats, head of enforcement and intelligence there, said: 'There has been a significant increase in recent years in the sale and supply of counterfeit medicines.

'Criminal gangs are targeting consumers via the Internet, in pubs and clubs and through illegal advertising.

'We have seen a significant upsurge, especially in lifestyle medication for things such as erectile dysfunction and weight loss products.' Trading standards officers in Oxfordshire, who recently purchased ten prescription pills from foreign websites, found that three batches, including Clomid and Diazepam, came with no instructions and one was suspected to be fake.

In a similar investigation in Worcestershire, four out of ten drugs ordered online failed to turn up and another three samples were suspected to be fake.

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