albanyweblog.com
Updated
March 4, 2007
Oh yes... we have to protect the children by any means necessary, don't we? No matter what the cost.
Internet brings drug dealing into the home
Placing orders online becomes an easy way to get controlled substancesBy BRENDAN J. LYONS, Senior writer
First published: Sunday, March 4, 2007, Times Union
ALBANY -- Ryan Haight was just 17 when he began suffering from back and joint pain.
He was an honors student, a gifted athlete and, like many teenagers, he knew how to navigate the Internet. When his pain worsened, Haight used his computer to find an Oklahoma pharmacy from which he ordered painkillers and anti-depressants.
A medical doctor he never met provided a prescription for the drugs, and the pharmacy mailed them out.
On Feb. 21, 2001, Haight, a resident of La Mesa, Calif., died at the age of 18 after mixing morphine and two prescription anti-depressants with Hydrocodone, a highly addictive painkiller.
Haight's tragic story has been told to various congressional committees, and it underscores what many federal agencies have acknowledged for years: Internet pharmacies are fast becoming one of the nation's primary delivery systems for controlled substances. The issue took on heightened awareness last week with the raid of several Orlando, Fla., pharmacies that were selling drugs to customers in New York.
The problem is bad, federal authorities say, and becoming worse each year. While police continue to wage their war on street drugs, many law enforcement experts say more needs to be done about Internet pharmacies.
Indeed, a 2005 study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) showed that abuse of pharmaceutical controlled substances has grown at a rate twice that of marijuana, five times that of cocaine, and 60 times that of heroin, between 1992 and 2003.
"Perhaps most disturbing is that many of these Internet pharmaceutical sites ... are hiding behind a facade of legitimacy by pretending to ask customers health questions," said Joseph T. Rannazzisi, a Drug Enforcement Administration deputy assistant administrator, in testimony in 2005 before before a House subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
"After customers fill out a superficial questionnaire, which is given an even more cursory review, if any, by a doctor employed by the Internet pharmacy, these sites provide pharmaceutical products with no face-to-face medical examination, no tests, no drug interaction screening, and no follow-up care," Rannazzisi added.
Last week, when Albany County District Attorney David Soares helped steer the arrest of several doctors, pharmacists and business owners in a multi-state investigation of illicit pharmacies, he was subsequently criticized, in a politically charged attack, for his decision to prosecute the case.
Yet a review of dozens of reports to Congress in the past eight years shows that federal sentencing guidelines for a conviction of distributing pharmaceutical drugs are weak when compared to the penalties many states impose. In addition, the Food and Drug Administration and other federal agencies have encouraged states to prosecute Internet pharmacy cases, citing a lack of resources at the FDA and other oversight agencies.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office issued a report two years ago showing "that although extensive time and resources are required to locate, charge and convict criminal anabolic steroid dealers, the penalties under the federal sentencing guidelines faced by persons convicted of such offenses do not reflect the seriousness of their crimes or provide adequate deterrence."
The Albany County case has drawn national attention because of its revelation that many professional athletes allegedly obtained performance-enhancing drugs, including steroids, from some of the pharmacies involved. But an agent in the case, and court records, show that many of the pharmacies and doctors targeted in the investigation also routinely prescribed controlled substances that include Hydrocodone, Vicodin and other addictive substances.
In some ways, the investigation is similar to a law enforcement initiative to detect and arrest pedophiles who troll the Internet for victims. To combat the problem, the Albany and Guilderland police departments and several other area law enforcement agencies have assigned officers to a cyber-crime task force at the Albany FBI facility.
There, the officers comb Web sites for pedophiles, routinely arresting suspects from other areas and states who are then prosecuted locally. The Internet, law enforcement experts say, has blurred jurisdictional boundaries and is forcing many local prosecutors to take on multi-state prosecutions of crimes such as identity theft, fraud, sexual misconduct and drug dealing.
James A. Dahl, the retired assistant director of the FDA's Office of Criminal Investigation, warned Congress two years ago that Internet pharmacies had become the next front in the war on drug abuse.
"The problem of foreign and domestic Internet sales of controlled substances and other dangerous pharmaceutical products is a large and complex issue that appears to be growing exponentially," Dahl said. "The only real concern of the owners of these Internet operations is not the health and well being of the consumer, but their ability to collect payment through the credit card used for the purchase."
In February 2005, an article in U.S. News and World Report magazine disclosed that prescription-drug abuse was rising in all age groups, especially among teenagers. The magazine reported that one in 10 high school seniors has tried the painkiller Vicodin without a prescription, and 1 in 20 has taken the potent pill OxyContin.
Another study by the federal government has shown that nearly 3 percent of high school seniors use steroids, a figure that is climbing. In addition, children as young as 13 now experiment with steroids, according to an FDA report.
"For young people in particular, online pharmacies seem especially seductive. For this generation, the Internet is a familiar medium and it feels safe," said U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., during a hearing on Internet pharmacies in December 2005 before the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. "The seduction and convenience of the
Internet coupled with the wide availability of controlled substances raises a disturbing prospect of many young people hooked on drugs with the ease of logging on to a computer."
The prosecution undertaken by Soares' office, which began in 2005, has resulted in several arrests of New York residents, including a Colonie man, Daniel Mori, who was arrested in January on charges of insurance fraud, drug possession and hindering prosecution for allegedly trying to warn others about the Albany County grand jury investigation.
Signature Pharmacy of Orlando, which was raided Tuesday, is a registered out-of-state pharmacy in New York and did nearly $10 million in sales here over the past two years, authorities said.
Orlando's Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation, staffed by federal and state law enforcement agencies, is one of the lead agencies in the case. The bureau convinced Albany County authorities to get involved in the investigation after Orlando investigators found "many of Signature's doctors, as well as a large part of their business, were located in New York," according to an internal memorandum provided to state officials recently by Albany prosecutors.
Several people arrested in the case are scheduled to appear in Albany County Court this week on sealed indictments charging them with felonies that include criminal diversion of prescription medicines and insurance fraud.
Brendan J. Lyons can be reached at 454-5547 or by e-mail at blyons@timesunion.com.
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