Illegal Prescription Drugs
Relevant Reports
Teens and Steroid Usage: Their View
Google, YouTube, and Evil Doers
As much as 10 percent of prescription drugs in the world are counterfeit. And the Internet, where pharmaceuticals are poorly regulated, provides easy access to these products. This is no small problem: fake medicine is a $75 billion business in North America alone.
While we rely on medicines to live longer and better, because of counterfeit drugs, our “medicine” is killing us. Everything from arsenic to floor wax to rat poison shows up in counterfeit drugs. And even when the drugs are real, the Internet has made it possible for people to access and abuse them more readily than ever before.
Those who sell counterfeit and illegal drugs often target the most vulnerable among us—teens desperate for an athletic or academic boost, seniors looking for a cheaper alternative for their life-saving medicines—who don’t fully understand the dangers.
For drug dealers, the Internet is the new playground. Instead of finding targets on the street, they can come right into your home without your even realizing it.
Just as with illegal drug sales in our neighborhoods, it takes the right laws—and the right enforcement methods—to shut down illegal drug activities. It’s a problem that no one person or organization can fight alone, but if all of us work together—families, Internet companies, and public officials, we can put a stop to online drug trafficking.
As Digital Citizens, we demand better online safeguards and real enforcement so we can keep our kids, parents, and selves, as well as our larger communities, out of danger from illegal prescription drugs.
infographic: Teens and Steroid Usage: Their View