According to a story in today’s Chicago Sun-Times, Illinois resident Craig Schmidt ordered two prescription drugs over the Internet. Relevant Fact: He ordered them without a doctor’s prescription. Actually, to be more precise, he got an “on-line” prescription. They came in the mail and he took them
What was the next thing he remembers?
“Waking up in Elmhurst Hospital two weeks later,” he testified Monday in his lawsuit in U.S. District Court.
Schmidt suffered brain damage after taking Xanax and Ultram,
anti-anxiety drugs that depress the central nervous system, said his
attorney, Edmund J. Scanlan.
Had the doctors followed the recommended guidelines of the American
Medical Association and the laws in most states, they would not
prescribe medicine over the Internet without examining patients and
getting their medical histories.
But Schmidt found, as have countless other Internet users, how easy it
is to order drugs online with only perfunctory completion of a questionnaire, Scanlan said. Illinois is among the minority of states with no law against prescribing drugs over the Internet, according to the Federation of State Medical Boards’ Dallas-based National Clearinghouse on Internet Prescribing.
Since 1999, Illinois has suspended the licenses of three doctors and
issued a cease-and-desist order against a pharmacy dispensing drugs over the Internet. But that was before Governor “Wrong-Way” Rod Blagojevich went on his crusade for foreign drugs — sending Illinois residents the signal that it’s not only okay but preferrable to order prescription drugs over the Internet from foreign sources.
Actions have consequences. And Governor Blagojevich should be considered an unindicted co-conspirator.
