Online pharmacy laws may get update - NEW RULES WOULD HELP DISCOURAGE ILLEGAL DRUG TRADE, SOME SAY
Top state law enforcement officials will seek to
tweak a fairly new law during the upcoming Kentucky
General Assembly in an attempt to further discourage
the use of Internet pharmacies in the illegal drug
trade.
Proposed legislation will require proof of an actual
doctor-patient relationship and at least one physical
examination in order for a person to order prescription
pills. Proposed legislation will also make it a felony
to receive the drugs from an Internet pharmacy without
a legitimate reason or to sell fake medical records,
said Attorney General Greg Stumbo.
Although an Internet pharmacy bill was passed and
signed into law less than two years ago, Stumbo said
the update is needed and predicts the law will almost
certainly be updated in future sessions to close loopholes.
"We're seeing new ways pharmacies are trying
to get around this law," he said in an interview
last week.
Opiate-based prescription drugs have overtaken other
drugs as the most abused forms. They top the list
of drug overdoses, and their abuse has ravaged many
Kentucky communities.
The 2005 Kentucky General Assembly passed the bill
in part to regulate Internet pharmacies. Complaints
from delivery service drivers that they were being
accosted by those waiting for drugs helped lead to
the passage of the current law.
Since July 2005, the Kentucky Bureau of Investigation
has seized pills with a street value of more than
$1 million.
The majority of the shipments came from Florida,
said Kentucky Bureau of Investigation Commissioner
David James. The Web sites are increasingly difficult
to track because they may be up for only three or
four days, and the operators can be spread throughout
the world.
"The broker might be in Texas. The pharmacy
might be in California. The money might be in Southeast
Asia and the person making it might be in Russia,"
James said.
The current law forbids the sale and shipment of
drugs in Kentucky by unlicensed out-of-state pharmacies.
It also lays out several requirements, such as applying
for state permits and maintaining records, to prevent
illegal drug transactions.
However, the law does not address in great detail
the people who receive the drugs shipped from the
unlicensed pharmacies. Drug trafficking laws apply
if the person is caught selling pills, but there is
no provision to prosecute someone for receiving drugs
from an unlicensed pharmacy, Stumbo said.
If passed, the new legislation would allow for a
buyer to be charged with a Class D felony for a first
offense and a Class C felony for each subsequent offense,
Stumbo said.
Requiring a physical exam from a doctor and having
an actual doctor-patient relationship will also help
go after some of the "end-users" who receive
the pills from the pharmacies, said Jon Marshall of
the Kentucky State Police. Marshall sits on the attorney
general's Internet pharmacy task force, which has
worked on drafting a bill the attorney general plans
to put before the next General Assembly.
"It's going to allow us to go after some of
these end-users ... to show we mean business,"
he said.
When Marshall worked undercover last year, he spoke
to doctors by telephone in Tampa, Fla., and told them
he had pain in his left arm and upper back. They prescribed
him pain pills without ever following up on his symptoms
to rule out a heart attack or suggesting he get checked
out by a physician.
With the proposed legislation, Marshall said, "We've
got to be careful we're not hurting or damaging the
legitimate mail-order pharmacies, but the ones that
use brokers or contract with doctors to do these online
medical examinations, they've got to go."
