Posted At Winchester Sun

By: Tim Weldon

A new state law designed to make it more difficult to obtain prescription drugs from Internet pharmacies goes into effect today, but some law enforcement officials are already predicting that it's not likely to do much to prevent people from obtaining drugs online.

Even Sen. R.J. Palmer, D-Winchester, who co-sponsored Senate Bill 63, says he doesn't expect the law to be the panacea that will put an end to what he calls a "rampant problem."

Palmer said, "I'm hopeful that it will be effective at combating (Internet drug sales), although I have to admit that I have some questions about whether it will reach to the extent that I had hoped it would."

SB 63, which is primarily intended to make it more difficult to obtain ingredients used to manufacture methamphetamines, also contains provisions that require Internet pharmacies to be licensed to sell and ship prescription drugs to people in Kentucky.

Violating the law will be a class C felony, punishable by 5-10 years in prison.

Mike Burleson, Director of the Kentucky Board of Physicians, says so-called cyberpharmacies will not be able to receive a state permit unless they first obtain national certification from the Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites (VIPPS). That six-year-old program, operated by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, sets strict membership guidelines that will prevent nonlegitimate Internet pharmacies from being accepted, according to Burleson.

Merely applying for VIPPS certification is costly, running between $4,375 to $7,375, depending on the type of medications sold. If approved for membership, there are also inspection fees, participation fees and facility fees that would run into the thousands of dollars for a cyberpharmacy.

Nobody knows how many cyberpharmacies are operating, but in January 2004, Palmer said 157 were documented, with only 6 percent requiring a written prescription from a physician who actually saw the patient in person. The vast majority will write prescriptions for patients without seeing them face to face. Those, Burleson says, would not qualify for VIPPS certification and therefore will not be licensed to operate in Kentucky.

Currently, only 14 online pharmacies have VIPPS certification, according to the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy Web site.

Burleson says another provision of the new law will prevent some people from using nonlicensed pharmacies to order narcotics. It allows shipping companies to seize as contraband any package that is believed to contain controlled substances from a nonlicensed source.

"If they can seize these prescriptions, once they confiscate them, these folks are not going to want to order them. If you're ordering $5,000 worth of this medication a month and if all of a sudden it's going to be seized before you get it but your credit card has already been billed, you're not going to want to order it again," Burleson said.

But critics point out that in many cases, prescription drugs are shipped C.O.D. (cash on delivery). Therefore, purchasers would not lose any money if drug shipments were seized, although the cyberpharmacies would in those cases.

Some law enforcement officials say the new law lacks teeth needed for a full-scale assault on the Internet drug trade.

"I don't even know if this new law will help, to be honest with you. I hope it does, but I'm really skeptical," Clark County Sheriff Ray Caudill said.

He argues that a person should not be able to buy narcotics without actually seeing a doctor face-to-face and getting a prescription from that doctor. The majority of cyberpharmacies ask for a written description of a medical problem and require a telephone consultation with a practitioner. Some require the client to fax medical records. However, there is no face-to-face visit with a doctor and little to prove that medical records are accurate.

"At this point, we're doing what we can," Palmer explained. "The resolution to the problem tends to be a moving target. We have to try to improve things in order to curtail the problem that we're trying to curtail."

Palmer concedes the solution may have to come from Congress. A bill, known as the Ryan Haight Internet Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act of 2005 has been filed in both the House and Senate in Washington, D.C. The bill, which is named after a 17-year-old from California who died from an overdose of drugs obtained from the Internet, would place strict controls on Internet sites selling prescription drugs.

It would prohibit Internet drug sales if the purchaser did not already have a valid prescription and if it involved an online consultation with a medical practitioner who did not actually see the person buying the drugs face-to-face.

Sixth District Congressman Ben Chandler, D-Versailles, says solving the Internet drug problem probably will require federal legislation, and he says he supports the Haight Act.

"It's a good bill," Chandler said. "The problem that we know about is that people have the ability to get these drugs very easily online. It allows for easy trafficking of narcotics and it exacerbates the prescription drug problems that we know we have in this country."

As Kentucky's attorney general, Chandler was instrumental in creating the Kentucky All-Schedule Prescription Electronic Reporting, or KASPER, which requires pharmacies to report to the state the names of anyone purchasing narcotics in an attempt to crack down on doctor or pharmacy shopping. Chandler says one problem with KASPER is that some drug addicts or dealers would buy drugs from pharmacies outside Kentucky, which did not have a system similar to KASPER.

Chandler explains that's why an attack on Internet drug sales needs to come from Washington, not from individual states.

"Congress, if they stop just a handful of these rogue pharmacies, I think they've done some good," Chandler said.