As you know, we are the first to write about the dangers of no-prescription pharmacies on this blog, and the first to tell you that most online pharmacies are unlicensed and potentially unsafe — so you have to be careful. That’s why we created this site.

But the reality is, the vast majority of prescription drug abuse in this country is not facilitated through online pharmacies. Despite all the media hype (fueled by Big Pharma PR firms) linking teen prescription drug abuse to online pharmacies, the data clearly shows that teen abusers in most cases are taking these medications directly from their parents’ medicine cabinets.

As the Los Angeles Times has reported:

Among teens and young adults 12 to 25, one-third of those who use illicit drugs say they recently have abused prescription drugs — including painkillers, tranquilizers and stimulants …

More than half who reported they had recently taken prescription drugs for nonmedical uses said they got the drugs from a friend or relative for free, and almost 20% got them from a physician. About 1 in 10 who took prescription pain relievers said they bought or stole them from a friend or relative…

Fewer than 5% told interviewers that they had had to resort to a drug-dealing stranger to acquire prescription drugs, or even to log onto an Internet site selling prescription drugs.

Did you catch that? That’s less than 5 percent of teens who are buying drugs online — way less.

The Green Bay, Wisconsin, paper confirms that the biggest cause of teen prescription drug abuse is lack of parental supervision:

Local law enforcement, education and medical officials are increasingly worried about the prescription drug abuse trend — called “pharming” — among young teens. Teens in middle school are stealing, distributing and consuming prescription drugs with alcohol, authorities say…

At some pharming parties, kids will bring whatever pills they can get their hands on — painkillers, anti-anxieties, sedatives, tranquilizers — and mix them into a drug cocktail with alcohol… Kids in middle school were sticking pills in their pens and selling the pens for $5 each, said Anne Tobias-Becker, social worker and coordinator for the district…

The prevention strategy for the future aims at the source of the drugs, which tends to be the freely accessible medicine cabinets of friends and family. “The message to take home is people need to lock up their drugs,” [Dr. Jane] Whitman said. “You lock up your guns, you should lock up the pills.”

We normally write about online pharmacy scams and safety on this blog. But the fact is, with the FDA so understaffed and underfunded in recent years, there have also been safety issues with the drugs you pick up from your corner Walmart.

We at NPN love generic drugs because they compete with overpriced brand-name drugs, forcing prices down. That’s why Walmart (and other discount retailers) can sell certain generic drugs for as little as $10 for a 90-day supply.

Teva Pharmaceuticals, a leading generic drug manufacturer, touts the claim that generic drugs are just as good as brand-name drugs in its new ad campaign:

We would love to agree with Teva. But we’re afraid it’s just not true in all cases.

The problem is that the FDA has not done its part here. The agency has not inspected the plants of generic drug makers to the extent that they should. As the People’s Pharmacy reports:

There … have been numerous recalls of generic drugs. Despite frequent assurances that such copycat medications are identical to their brand-name counterparts, scores of products have been recalled.

Last fall, the FDA banned a huge Indian pharmaceutical company, Ranbaxy, from bringing 30 different generic drugs into the U.S. Nothing more specific than “manufacturing violations” was cited. Nevertheless, Ranbaxy’s generic versions of drugs such as the cholesterol-lowering medicine simvastatin or the antibiotic ciprofloxacin were not allowed into the U.S.

More recently, a generic manufacturer called ETHEX, a division of KV Pharmaceutical, withdrew 60 generic drugs from the market. This might be just the tip of an iceberg. Hundreds of people have been complaining to their physicians and online that their generic drugs are not performing as expected. No one knows how big a problem this may be.

Fortunately, there is a way to purchase brand name drugs for less — sometimes for as little as the generic costs at your neighborhood Walmart. That’s by buying them at a licensed Canadian pharmacy.

Join us today!

Would you like insect parts with that?

That’s apparently what some rogue online pharmacies should be asking their customers when they order prescription medications from their Web sites!

According to news reports:

A new study by the European Union found that 62 percent of medications bought online were not what they were said to be. The study used purchases of 30 medications from 100 Internet pharmacies.

“They have heavy metals in them. They have insect parts. They have pesticides in them,” C. Wayne Weart, a pharmacy professor at the Medical University of South Carolina, said, “And some of them have some of the active ingredients, and some don’t. And some have other drugs.”

Weart also said many Internet pharmacies claim to be in Canada, but actually are in places like Africa, India or Pakistan.

Weart is right. Many rogue pharmacies claim to be licensed Canadian pharmacies, but actually aren’t legitimate pharmacies at all. They are criminal operations based in Third World ratholes, willing to risk your safety (or even your life) to scam you for a few dollars.

These rogue pharmacies — most of which are no prescription pharmacies — try to fool you by claiming to be Canadian and by even putting the seals of organizations like the Canadian International Pharmacy Association (CIPA) on their sites.

It’s critical that the online pharmacy you order from is actually licensed in Canada (or in a Tier 1 country like Australia, New Zealand or the U.K.) You can be certain that the pharmacies in the No Prescription Needed network are all properly licensed. We can even show you how to confirm this on official Canadian government Web sites.

So don’t take chances. Join No Prescription Needed to save — and be safe.

You may have noticed that pharmacy spammers aren’t the best spellers. For example, when you receive an e-mail solicitation to buy Viagra from a no prescription pharmacy, you will often notice that the word “Viagra” is spelled in a way similar to these:

V1agra
Via’gra
Viagr(a
Viagr^a
Viágrá
Viagara
Viag@ra
Viag&ra
vi*gra
\ /iagra

Why the bad spelling? The reason is that your e-mail program is equipped with spam-filtering software that works by searching for patterns in spam e-mails. For example, most e-mails that contain the word “Viagra” are spam — which causes the filtering programs to automatically dump these messages in spam folders or delete them altogether.

By intentionally misspelling words like “Viagra” or “Canadian pharmacy” or “no prescription pharmacy,” the spammers increase their chances of getting past the filters and into your inbox.

A researcher (who had been flooded with spam e-mails) got curious about how many incorrect ways a spammer could spell a simple, six-letter word like Viagra. He found there were over 600 quintillion possible variations — 600,426,974,379,824,381,952, to be exact.

Check out his methodology here.

We’ve posted a few times about the problem of pharmacy spam. In response, we’ve gotten e-mails asking what can be done when you’re being bombarded by spam.

Spammers can obtain private information such as your name, e-mail and mailing address using a wide variety of viruses and spyware. When installing free programs downloaded from the Internet, you often unknowingly download these malicious programs.

Spyware watches the Web sites you visit and records and stores the personal information you type into forms. The companies that collect your information through spyware then sell it to others, including spammers.

CanadaDrugs.com, one of our member pharmacies, offers the following tips and resources for learning more about spyware, how to prevent it from being installed on your computer, and how to remove it:

• Visit Microsoft’s spyware Web site. Windows Defender is a free tool to help protect against some of the most malicious programs on the Internet. It updates itself for free and scans constantly for new threats. A more advanced alternative is Windows Live OneCare, which has more comprehensive scanning and virus removal capabilities. It’s not free but may still be worth the investment if you’re concerned about spam and spend a lot of time online.
• Talk to your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Find out whether, as part of your service with them, they have software available to scan for viruses and spyware installed on your computer.
• Talk to the company where you bought your computer. They might have additional products and services to help address concerns with your particular computer.

If you’re getting spam from online pharmacies, such as no prescription pharmacies, the FDA is interested in hearing about it. You can e-mail the FDA with your complaint at the following addresses:

• otcfraud@cder.fda.gov
• webcomplaints@ora.fda.gov
• webmail@oc.fda.gov