Fighting Fake Online Pharmacies & Counterfeit Medicines

By: Shabbir J. Safdar, Executive Director of the Partnership for Safe Medicines

If law enforcement knows that criminals in another country are shipping illegal drugs to patients in the United States, how long should we let them traffic poison while we fight the problems of prosecuting foreign nationals? How long do we let them harm Americans while they sit outside our borders and refuse to come to the U.S.? Three weeks? Six weeks?

Right now, we’re operating at delays measured in years, and the cost to Americans in medical harm and fraud is not acceptable. New bipartisan legislation would help disrupt these criminals: the DRUGS Act (S.3399 / H.R. 6352)

Let me tell you a story about a “Canadian” pharmacy: A web pharmacy named CanadaDrugCenter.com shipped an anti-inflammatory and a blood thinner to the U.S. in 2014. Their website had Canada in its name, but the medicines they sold came from Mauritius and Turkey. They didn’t even pretend. The packages were drop shipped straight from Mauritius and Turkey to the buyer in Portland, Maine.

The recipient was a professor of pharmacy with access to a lab, so he tested them. The anti-inflammatory was sub-therapeutic (not enough active ingredient) and the blood thinner had a contaminant. (Cancer-causing agent, anyone?)

What do you think happened to the company, CanadaDrugCenter.com? 

Extradition, even from a friendly neighbor like Canada, is challenging. The criminals that ran
CanadaDrugCenter had an enormous network of over 200 fake pharmacy websites, but still
could not be easily extradited. It’s hard to negotiate a plea deal with someone who knows you
can’t force them into court to face charges.

Nothing. For years.

As the Maine Board of Pharmacy and the Maine Attorney General wondered how they might be able to protect their patients from Canada Drug Center’s predatory business, CanadaDrugCenter continued selling to Maine patients. The Internet Archive shows they ran the website for at least two more years. They also ran full page ads in the local Maine newspaper. And they continued selling their counterfeit medicines to Mainers.

Eventually, the feds finally got involved. They had to conduct a long investigation, convince a U.S. attorney to bring charges, and then deal with the fact that the executives from Canada Drug Center had no interest in showing up in U.S. courts. Eventually they pleaded guilty and settled the case. Nobody went to jail but they paid a fine of over four million dollars.

Why do we let these operations continue when law enforcement knows they are selling drugs illegally online? These criminals sell fake versions of therapeutics like blood thinners, but also controlled substances like the ones driving the current opioid crisis. They do it from outside U.S. borders because they know it’s really hard to extradite them. These aren’t the first counterfeiters to simply decline to show up in U.S. court.

There is a better way: When we have clear evidence that someone is running a business selling drugs illegally online without a state pharmacy license, we should suspend their website domain name. The Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Justice could have suspended CanadaDrugCenter.com once they had proof of the crime. And the “Canadian pharmacy” could have reclaimed the domain when they cleared themselves of the charge.

This isn’t a new concept: if the police discover you’ve turned your home into an open air heroin store and shooting gallery, you don’t get to keep the supply of drugs until you’ve won your trial. You’re lucky if you even get let out of jail. If you’re caught with a pill press with an illegal mold for opioids in it, you don’t get to keep using the pill press until the trial is over.

Photo Source: Money Logue

A new law that would take these website domains away from criminals is called the DRUGS Act (HR 6352 / S 3399). It’s bipartisan, introduced by both Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate, and would go a long way to protecting Americans from criminals who refuse to play by the rules while we go through the long process of adjudicating their cases.

To learn more about how you can support it, watch our video about this legislation and use this link to send a letter to your elected officials.

Disclaimer: Guest blogs do not necessarily reflect the views of the ADAP Advocacy Association, but rather they provide a neutral platform whereby the author serves to promote open, honest discussion about public health-related issues and updates.