Dangerous Drugs

Dr Jackie Blue has called for consumer awareness around purchasing drugs via the internet to be increase. Dr Blue put our her annoucement after a Blenheim man died after purchasing anti-depressant medication over the internet.

It is illegal to purchase many drugs over the net and have them sent to your home, with many being intercepted by customs, however there are still a large number that get through and even some which are not illegal per say, but are required by prescription.

The cost of some drugs is expensive and people try to find ways around this, a number of transgender people often turn to the internet to buy hormone treatments, as the cost of such drug treatments in NZ is horrendous.

The danger with purchasing drugs over the internet is that not only are you not aware of the quality of the drugs, or that they are even what you ordered, you also do not have a doctor's prescribed dosage, making overdoses a much larger risk and therefore fatalities are also increased.

As someone who has been on prescribed meds most of my life, as a child I had a paedeatric neurologist at Starship who was an American and one of the most knowledgable doctors I have ever had, she put me on the latest and greatest anti-convulsants in the world after I tried and failed many others, however for my mother this meant a cost of around $3000 a month, for the sake of her child my mother paid this and worked with Pharmac, MoH and the Epilepsy Foundation to get the cost down (which it eventually did), but one could easily see why some people would turn to the internet if it means the cost wil be less.

I personally urge anyone who knows people buying drugs over the internet to encourage them to go and talk to a doctor and get the medical advice they need and to stop the internet drugs at once.