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If someone purchases prescription medications from a non-regulated online pharmacy in a remote, third-world country is that simply a legal risk too? Unless you

If someone purchases prescription medications from a non-regulated online pharmacy in a remote, third-world country is that simply a legal risk too? Unless you synthesized it yourself or have the ability to analyze it in a lab, you absolutely cannot be certain of quality or authenticity. This is what legally enforced regulatory standards are all about ensuring. The illegal nature of the drug trade not only lacks provision for that, it influences and informs the behavior of participants on the supply side for economic reasons too. In a logical vacuum, yes, it is a legal risk. In practical application, the legal risk is often correlated with the quality risk too.

learnstats2 12y ago
Risk of mis-prescription: "one in 12 visits to the doctor in the US results in the patient receiving dangerous medications" http://www.in-pharmatechnologist.com/Drug-Delivery/No-improvement-in-misprescribing-rates http://www.in-pharmatechnologist.com/Drug-Delivery/No-improv... Risk of prescription being mis-filled: "An estimated 51.5 million errors occur during the filling of 3 billion prescriptions each year." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12688437?dopt=Abstract http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12688437?dopt=Abstract Risk of manufacturing error in prescription drugs: "Dr. Collazo recently worked with a drug manufacturer that had a baseline rate of 4.7 errors per thousand units manufactured." http://www.fdanews.com/humanerrordrugdevice http://www.fdanews.com/humanerrordrugdevice Risk of ??????: "Three batches of Nurofen Plus in pharmacies in south London have been found to contain another drug, Seroquel XL 50mg, which is manufactured by AstraZeneca – a completely separate drug company." http://metro.co.uk/2011/08/25/nurofen-plus-containing-antipsychotic-drugs-isnt-manufacturing-error-127966/ http://metro.co.uk/2011/08/25/nurofen-plus-containing-antips...
- spinchange 12y ago
  That's all entirely fair to point out - clearly serious breaches happen, even in heavily regulated environments! I don't think failings in those arenas undermine the notion that legal risk and quality/authenticity risk of illegal drugs is very often intertwined. I think even folks over at Erowid advise caution in dealing with these things. In that regard, conflating legal risk & qualitative risk isn't really a non sequitur. That's really all I was trying to say.
  - learnstats2 12y ago
    I understand your point, but - as you identify - LSD users are more aware of the risks and have a higher perception of risk. Although I don't have evidence either way, my suspicion is that this results in a comparatively low risk in truth. It's not immediate that the legal status impacts on the risk at all.
- sukilot 12y ago
  Only 6.5% of those misfillings were clinically significant. Overall less than 1% danger rate. That is bad, but not worse than street drugs. The mis-prescriptions were for infirm elderly patients, who I suspect wouldn't do great on LSD either.

learnstats2 12y ago

Risk of mis-prescription: "one in 12 visits to the doctor in the US results in the patient receiving dangerous medications" http://www.in-pharmatechnologist.com/Drug-Delivery/No-improvement-in-misprescribing-rates http://www.in-pharmatechnologist.com/Drug-Delivery/No-improv... Risk of prescription being mis-filled: "An estimated 51.5 million errors occur during the filling of 3 billion prescriptions each year." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12688437?dopt=Abstract http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12688437?dopt=Abstract Risk of manufacturing error in prescription drugs: "Dr. Collazo recently worked with a drug manufacturer that had a baseline rate of 4.7 errors per thousand units manufactured." http://www.fdanews.com/humanerrordrugdevice http://www.fdanews.com/humanerrordrugdevice Risk of ??????: "Three batches of Nurofen Plus in pharmacies in south London have been found to contain another drug, Seroquel XL 50mg, which is manufactured by AstraZeneca – a completely separate drug company." http://metro.co.uk/2011/08/25/nurofen-plus-containing-antipsychotic-drugs-isnt-manufacturing-error-127966/ http://metro.co.uk/2011/08/25/nurofen-plus-containing-antips...

spinchange 12y ago
That's all entirely fair to point out - clearly serious breaches happen, even in heavily regulated environments! I don't think failings in those arenas undermine the notion that legal risk and quality/authenticity risk of illegal drugs is very often intertwined. I think even folks over at Erowid advise caution in dealing with these things. In that regard, conflating legal risk & qualitative risk isn't really a non sequitur. That's really all I was trying to say.
- learnstats2 12y ago
  I understand your point, but - as you identify - LSD users are more aware of the risks and have a higher perception of risk. Although I don't have evidence either way, my suspicion is that this results in a comparatively low risk in truth. It's not immediate that the legal status impacts on the risk at all.
sukilot 12y ago
Only 6.5% of those misfillings were clinically significant. Overall less than 1% danger rate. That is bad, but not worse than street drugs. The mis-prescriptions were for infirm elderly patients, who I suspect wouldn't do great on LSD either.