Fighting the Online Drug Corner
Close to 10 percent of high school seniors have used an addictive, dangerous prescription narcotic within the past year. This is more than 10 times the rate of heroin use. Only tobacco, alcohol and marijuana are abused more frequently. Many young people wrongly believe that prescription painkillers, even if taken without a prescription, are not addictive and are much safer than street drugs. They also say that prescription drugs are "available everywhere."Although we don't know precisely how much prescription narcotic drug abuse is fueled by Internet purchases, we can get a sense of the availability of these drugs by going online and searching for, say, "vicodin without prescription" or "oxycontin without prescription." Search engines immediately identify thousands of Web sites that advertise these drugs and offer to take any major credit card for payment.
By Mathea Falco and Philip Heymann
15 March 2008