Drugs sold without prescription on website

By MICHAEL FOREMAN

A legal loophole has allowed a New Zealand-based Website to supply contraceptive and weight loss drugs without prescription.

The Hair2go site, which lists its address as a Herne Bay Post Office box, offers a variety of prescription medicines, including the anti-obesity drug Xenical, Diane 35 contraceptive pills and baldness restoratives - no questions asked. Prices, which are quoted in New Zealand as well as US dollars, are higher than those listed by online pharmacies which insist on prescriptions.

For example, a four-week supply of 84 Xenical tablets costs $200 at Hair2go, compared with the $165 quoted at a Christchurch-based prescription-only site.

Similarly, 28 tablets of the hair restorative Propecia, which would cost $90 at the Christchurch site, are offered for $107 at Hair2go.

Despite condemning the sale of prescription medicines directly to consumers as "dangerous and both ethically and professionally wrong," the Ministry of Health has admitted it is powerless to stop the Hair2go site from operating.

Ministry senior medical adviser Dr Stewart Jessamine said a court case last year highlighted a limitation in the Medicines Act 1981 that allows pharmacists to use the Internet to dispense medicines without prescription to individuals overseas.

Last December, the ministry was forced by the Auckland District Court to return medicines it had seized from Kerry Bell, an Auckland pharmacist who had been supplying prescription medicines over the Internet.

Ministry spokeswoman Selina Gentry said legislation to close the loophole was being drafted but she had no date for its release.

Euan Galloway, practice and legislation spokesman at the Pharmaceutical Society, said it was hard to tell how many similar sites were operating in New Zealand.

"It's probably about two or three. The pressure is on them now so they are in the process of moving offshore."

He believed it was unlikely such sites could obtain Government subsidies for certain prescription drugs.

Kerry Bell, proprietor of the Kingsland Pharmacy in Auckland, which operates Drugs2go, a site that insists on prescriptions for prescription drugs, said he had no connection with the Hair2go site.

"That's not my site," he claimed. "It's owned by a guy in America."

He admitted the Herne Bay Post Box number appearing on Hair2go was his address, but said: "We are not operating it any longer."

Asked why the Pharmaceutical Society named him as the operator of both the Hair2go and Drugs2go sites, Mr Bell replied: "I'm surprised they mentioned my name."