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1. What’s the Problem?
Once upon a time there used to be a lot of ads on this site, care of Google, from dodgy pharmacies. The overwhelming majority were fraudulent, but at least I’ve told you that often enough. You won’t see too many ads like that any more, as that has landed Google in a bit of trouble. Constantly checking such ads has meant you get to see the back-up ads I have, which take you to Straitjacket T-shirts, our Cafe Press store where you can buy shirts emblazoned with witty messages in our singular pill font, and Burning Mind Books, our Amazon store with the books used as reference material for this site. Google is none too happy with all of that, and is taking action against those crooks.
In a way that makes selecting an online pharmacy both easier and harder. It’s simpler in that you’re not constantly bombarded with ads from hundreds of disreputable sites promising drugs without the need of a prescription; drugs that are usually counterfeit and range from useless to dangerous. It’s more difficult because you might get lazy and think any place that advertises on Crazy Meds via Google (or other sites, including those using Microsoft and Yahoo as ad servers is legitimate. It’s still no guarantee.
2. Thank You Capt. Obvious
Fortunately there are a few easy ways to determine if a pharmacy is unlikely to take your money in exchange for fake meds, if anything at all. The most obvious of which is offering to sell you meds without a prescription or having one of their ‘doctors’ write the prescription for you. Any site doing that is a scam, and you should scan your computer for spyware after leaving.
Some pharmacies will ask for information about the condition(s) you’re treating in order to verify with one of their doctors that you’re not ordering something dangerous. That is the sort of thing a decent mail-order/Internet pharmacy should do. Depending on where a pharmacy is located, they may be required to have a local doctor review the prescription and have a copy of your driver’s license (or similar form of ID) sent to them in order to fill your order.
Another obvious red flag is any pharmacy outside of the US offering to sell you stimulants, benzodiazepines, opioid-based painkillers, or any other controlled substance, whether you have a prescription or not. That’s not legal, and you really should check your computer for malware if you visit a site that offers to do illegal crap.
3. Certified = Good
The best way to tell if a pharmacy that isn’t an obvious scam is legitimate is to check if they are certified by the appropriate agency.
In the US the people who certify that someone is qualified to be a pharmacist - National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP)1 - run the Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites (VIPPS) program. Verified pharmacies will have the VIPPS seal on their site that links to their verification information. You can also enter the pharmacy’s URL at the bottom of the VIPPS page to see if it’s verified or not, or scroll through their massive (28 as of this writing) database of US-based online pharmacies that won’t screw you over.
They also run a program for veterinary pharmacies.
Canadian pharmacies are verified by the Canadian International Pharmacy Association (CIPA). As with VIPPS, CIPA-certified sites display the CIPA seal that links to their verification information. CIPA also has a verification page where you can enter a pharmacy’s URL and browse their hugely extensive list2 of 14 certified pharmacies. I especially like how they also list known fraudulent websites on the same page.
There may be certification programs for pharmacies based in other countries, but I haven’t found them.
That’s all there is to it. As long as a pharmacy is certified by an appropriate accreditation agency and doesn’t offer anything illegal, it’s probably safe, otherwise shop elsewhere. As for which one to pick after that…
4. Worst. Pharmacy. Ever.
Has someone else complained about the pharmacy in question? One thing the Internet is good for is voicing complaints, loudly and frequently. If someone has had a bad enough experience, they might just register a domain for the express purpose of voicing a complaint about something3. Just enter the name or the URL of the pharmacy in question into Google and look at the nature of the results you get. If there are too many results, add words and phrases related to complaints like “delay,” “wrong,” “customer service,” “sucks ass.”
You can do similar search looking for praise. Of course just like anywhere else people put far more energy into complaining about something than they would in praising it. And you often run into ads for the pharmacies.
It’s now a lot more difficult to find any mention of specific pharmacies because, for some bizarre reason, PayPal considers discussing specific online pharmacies as facilitating the sale of drugs. No, really. Somehow telling you that one certified pharmacy has good customer service, or another with a very similar name to the first is a fraudulent site is a violation of PayPal’s acceptable use policy regarding:
5. violat[ing] applicable laws or industry regulations regarding the sale of (a) tobacco products, or (b) prescription drugs and devices
So don’t expect to find any reviews of Internet pharmacies on sites that take donations via PayPal.
For more information on avoiding fraudulent ‘pharmacies’ and picking legitimate ones, see the FDA’s guide to buying medicine online. They also have a fancy PDF version, amusingly located in their Emergency Preparedness & Bioterrorism section. I shit thee not.
5. Some Things are as Simple as They Seem
I’ve purchased prescription medications from several different CIPA-certified Canadian pharmacies. They each have their good points and their bad points. If someone you trust is happy with a particular certified pharmacy see if the meds you need are available and what they cost. Then pick a couple other certified pharmacies to compare, and if their prices aren’t that much different, just use the same pharmacy as your friend/family member. Sometimes some things in life can be that easy.
6. People are Idiots
No matter what the FDA, various non-profit and assorted other non-governmental organizations, and people with websites like this one4 try to do, there are plenty of morons out there more than ready to give their money to crooks in exchange for anything from harmless placebos to dangerous concoctions. Case in point this experiment by Central Michigan University researchers. Not only did they created patently obvious bogus pharmacies, but had said pharmacies sell a fictional medication. Half of their fellow students were willing to buy Beozine from at least one of the ‘pharmacies.’ So I don’t have any expectations as to how much good our efforts will do.
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1 Technically the NABP is a "professional organization." Professional organizations involve themselves in everything from lobbying for industry-specific tax breaks to raising money for charities which have no reason to spend a dime on anything the people in that organization do for a living.2 As Canadia has a population that's around 11% of the US, that's comparatively way more extensive.
3 Although costcowebpharmacysucks.com is no longer expressly about how much Mr. Robinson hates CostCo's online pharmacy, I still love the passion of his screeds. His site is an example of what made teh interwebs great. There just aren't enough sites like this anymore.
4 Rather, sort of like this one. I doubt if there's a website anything like Crazy Meds.
Page created by: Jerod Poore. Date created: 26 November 2010 Last edited by:
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Almost all of the material on this site is copyright © 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 Jerod Poore. Except, of course, the PI sheets - those are the property of the drug companies who developed the drugs the sheets are about - and any documents that are written by other people which may be posted to this site will remain the property of the original authors. You cannot reproduce this page or any other material on this site outside of the boundaries of fair use copying without the express permission of the copyright holder. That’s usually me, so just ask first. That means if want to print out a few pages to take to your doctor, therapist, counselor, support group, non-understanding family members or something like that - then that’s OK to just do. Go for it! Please. As long as you include this copyright notice and the following disclaimer, I’m usually cool with it.
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*While there are plenty of books to help you with hypochondria, for some reason there’s not much in the way of websites. Then again, staying off of the Internet is a large part of curing/managing the disorder.
‘Everything is true, nothing is permitted.’ - Jerod Poore
