FDA seizes 19,618 packages containing harmless, unscheduled medication that patients happened to buy from online pharmacies. I suggest launching a non-drug darknet marketplace so people can get medicine without getting screwed over by our government.

Here's the press release where they brag about depriving sick people of their medicine:

http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm398499.htm

Apparently all the $5,000 ambulance charges aren't enough for Big Health Care. They have to stop people getting medicine outside of their airtight vertically-integrated monopoly, too. This is even more appalling than the drug war, because the result is not to stop people from getting high, but to stop sick people from getting better. The list of most common medications seized: "insulin, estrogen, bimatoprost, human chorionic gonadotropin, tramadol, tadalafil and sildenafil citrate". Note that none of these are scheduled, and none are abuse-able. The inclusion of "insulin, estrogen, bimatoprost" there is particularly sad. Insulin is critical for diabetes sufferers. Not having insulin can be life threatening, though it can be bought over the counter and replaced. The other two can't, unfortunately. Estrogen is a female hormone affecting almost every tissue in the body - women who can't produce it, such as menopausal and transgender women, need to take it every day or experience a mass of symptoms including depression, hot flashes, migraines, insomnia, and osteoporosis. My friend, who is transgender, tells me that she is terrified of going without estrogen for more than a few days, and she and many trans people she knows rely on online pharmacies to buy it. As for Bimatoprost it is used to prevent glaucoma from causing vision loss and eventually blindness. Glaucoma may be stopped with drugs like this, but the damage it causes cannot be reversed. Thus, taking this medication away is pretty much removing the only thing standing between glaucoma sufferers and vision loss and eventual blindness. None of their doublespeak about "the correct supply chain" comes close to justifying this.

I would like to suggest a darknet market that is less illegal than the big ones, but that will satisfy an important growing need of many Americans - readily available prescription drugs. And not just the oxy, xanax, adderall kind, but the unscheduled kinds - antibiotics, antidepressants, beta blockers, antipsychotics, estrogens, and so on. (side note: my friend was pointing out how the typical market has lots of people selling testosterone and like 15+ different analogs, precursors, brand names of testosterone, but you try to find some estrogen and it's near impossible) I've lost count of the number of times I knew exactly what $5 pill bottle I needed, but couldn't get it until I paid $100 to see a doctor. Or I lost a prescription, or just really could use a couple beta blockers to stop the shaking when giving a speech, but found out they only give them for high blood pressure. Overseas pharmacies are supposed to solve that, but by the time your antibiotics arrive in two weeks from half the world over, your stomach's healed itself. And now they're trying to take even that away. Imagine if you could get any medicine you need, in 2 days by priority mail at a competitive price, without dealing with the sketchy pharmacies in India that may or may not be counterfeit. Or, if you could take all the half-used prescription bottles you no longer need and get some extra cash while at the same time helping someone who needs them more. Yes, (as opposed to buying), selling them is a crime, but that's what the tor and bitcoin is for, and anyway, any police department that spends time and money tracking these sellers down is going to have to explain why they thought this was a better use of time than the 20+ markets full of people selling smack and meth. Having a market be exclusively for non-scheduled prescription drugs will make it the lowest priority market for police to investigate, and thus the safest.

So, what do people think of this idea? Create a market to get access to the ridiculous amount of medicine that's not scheduled, not abusable or addictive, but still prescription only for no goddamn reason. Actually, now that I think about it, there is a reason and that reason is doctors want more money.


Comments


[36 Points] None:

I think this is a great idea. You should post this to r/bitcoin, as such a market would lend extra legitimacy to bitcoin as a grey market currency; it's not only a matter of black and white.

By the way, tramadol is very abusable. And very addictive. It's kinda crazy that's not controlled.


[27 Points] None:

[deleted]


[9 Points] None:

Honestly, while this is well-intended, in reality people shouldn't be prescribing themselves medication, especially anti-depressants and other drugs that are for a serious condition.


[5 Points] allfateverything:

I have ordered medications on the clearnet for years. The issue is simply due to customs and I don't think it would really matter if you ordered on a darknet site. That said, this is a great opportunity to expand non narco market activity over night. Somebody who is from India with Canadian citizenship has an opportunity to make $$$$$$$$$


[5 Points] infernalsatan:

There's already one: Canada


[2 Points] inbetweenist:

I have money ear marked for the person who does...


[2 Points] davidknag:

If someone were to build a peer-to-peer open source encrypted/anonymous protocol for marketplaces, then anyone could branch and start their own market which is impossible to take down.


[2 Points] asdfaf21:

Nearly all of those are used for non medicinal reasons by weightlifters


[2 Points] None:

Great OP. Alas, it's just one of the many flaws with the current drugs "system". I feel for you guys in the US because paying to see a doctor seems moronic, healthcare should be free for all, fin. It amuses me that pharmaceutical companies sell methadone every day and it's perfectly legal. Yet when a drug dealer does it they get 5-10 in the pen, when the only difference between the two is one pays taxes. So his crime should be just that - tax evasion for $200 worth of drugs. Is that worth 5-10? It all comes down to money in the end, and we are increasingly becoming a society that focuses on nothing other than profits, fuck people's needs.

P.S. I think tramadol is an opiate so wouldn't it be controlled?


[2 Points] None:

Only flaw I see in this is that pretty much anything can be abused and thus create a potential psychological dependency. Better not to use words like that and stick to "medicine".

India is great because they don't give a shit about our patents (nor should they), they generally produce great quality drugs, and the price more closely reflects the actual costs of the drug. As long as it isn't opiates, everything I've tried is equivalent or even superior to the US product and a fraction of the price.

I'm all for getting every American getting their meds in the mail at prices that aren't blatant robbery. The more people do it, the safer it gets, the more resources it wastes in policing an ultimately unpolicable thing. Hit them the only place you can: in their pocketbooks. It's small and piecemeal but nothing else does a damn thing.


[2 Points] None:

I hate when people post to week old threads but I feel a need to mention bimatoprost specifically as incredibly stupid and clearly political to be seizing.

The other meds could have at least a weak argument about safety but the reason bimatoprost is being imported like mad is because they accidentally discovered it grows your eyelashes and got to rebrand it as 'latisse' - despite a four dollar generic identical version being in any pharmacy in the world for many years, only the branded latisse is permitted to be prescribed for cosmetic use. Because of the applicator. Identical drug, same manufacturer, but you get this nice little brush and a different bottle.

I work in the pharma industry and although I find many claims of how evil it is to be a bit unfair at times - the ability to abuse patent laws in this manner is sickening. Latisse costs about a hundred bucks a bottle and insurance doesn't pay for cosmetic meds. You can get it for twenty bucks online easily.

It's not as bad as when EPA recently required a propellant in asthma medications to be slightly altered, giving new parents out, and creating a massive epidemic of people unable to afford their abuterol inhalers. It also eliminated the over the counter primatine mist that uninsured asthmatics relied on if they couldn't afford medical visits to find a preventative maintenance routine. Google up that mess if you ever feel like being in a bad mood.


[2 Points] glavdoc:

Some Internet pharmacies offer online prescribing only upon completion of a short questionnaire by the purchaser. Typically, it is claimed that the questionnaire is reviewed by a doctor and the drug is only prescribed if the doctor approves the questionnaire , however, this is difficult to verify. To address this concern, the American Medical Association has declared that any health care practitioner who offers a prescription to a patient solely on the basis of an on-line questionnaire without having ever examined the patient has not met the appropriate medical standard of care .I can recommend a reputable Internet Pharmacy. I've tried both original brand and generic Viagra. There is no difference in effectiveness as far as I can tell between the brand and Generic versions. The real difference is price, no comparison. And this suppliers seem honest and reliable. On the site http://goodpillsforus.com I've just placed my 3rd order. Viagra from this site is indeed good for male erection problem treatment....


[1 Points] dopelessfopefiend:

I like the idea.

And maybe I could find buyers this way.


[1 Points] choleropteryx:

There's the well-known CoinRx on the clearnet and it would be very straightforward to set up another one like that. The infrastructure is all there.

You need to:

As the business is pretty much legal, you don't need much in the way of opsec here. The dropshipper does get to see the postal addresses of your clients, but sans email or credit card info it's not very useful to them.

You would want to place test orders to be sure the dropshipper is not scamming you (rare but happens), that goes for any drug vending enterprise, really.


[-2 Points] None:

Fucked up, thanks for the share. But I don't think this idea will ever go threw as most people don't want to do "illegal" things.