INTERNET'S EASY ACCESS FEEDS DRUGS

NEW YORK - The Internet has become a powerful sales tool for traffickers of
illegal narcotics and prescription drugs, according to a U.N. report that
warned the dark side of globalization had made illicit drugs easier than
ever to obtain.

On-line pharmacies are dispensing legal medications, from Viagra to
addictive pain relievers, without prescription, according to the
International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), which said the drugs should
not be dispensed without a doctor's prescription or other professional
oversight.

Illegal drugs, particularly psychotropics and amphetamines, are
increasingly available from Internet sites, the group warned in a report
prepared for release today.

The report called improper drug use the fastest growing problem in the
industrialized world.

Because the tablets and liquids can be packaged in small, innocuously
labeled containers, they pass unsuspected through the usual mail controls,
and few of the shippers are apprehended.

"It started as a trickle and - wham! - now it's a mushroom cloud," said
INCB board member Herbert Okun, former U.S. ambassador to Germany and the
United Nations, who has been involved with the Vienna drug board since 1992.

He said he didn't have figures on Internet drug sales, "but you can see
just by looking on your computer screen how many sites there are, how many
links, the whole thing is exploding."

Paraphernalia also is abundant over the Web, including Dutch hydroponic
systems for growing high-potency marijuana and recipes for stirring up
batches of Ecstasy in kitchens or basement labs.

The INCB first flagged Internet sales as a potential problem in 1996, but
it said in the new report that few governments had yet figured out how to
control proscribed Internet activity.

The annual report, compiled by the Vienna-based INCB, tracks trends in
illicit drug production and consumption around the world.

This year's report, based on 2000 statistics, found that the use of Ecstasy
is on the rise in the United States - while heroin is on the decline, and
consumption of marijuana and cocaine remain virtually unchanged.

It also said Americans are experimenting at an earlier age.

In spite of Washington's "war on drugs," the INCB painted a grim picture of
a uniquely American prescription-drug culture that is rich, varied and
thriving.

The panel said pharmaceutical companies have "medicalized" social ills such
as anxiety, sadness, weight gain and hyperactivity in children.

"As of yet there is no neurological evidence, no physiological evidence
that [attention deficit disorder] exists, but we do know that we have
hyperactive children," Mr. Okun said yesterday. "Therefore, the treatment
tends to be symptomatic, and therefore excessive."

Drug manufacturers also have begun sophisticated advertising campaigns on
television and in print, creating brand-name-style demand for prescription
drugs.

"I can hardly get through Time or Newsweek now without seeing ads for
something I've never heard of before," marveled Mr. Okun. "Social anxiety
disorder? An interesting acronym."

Medication for a variety of social ills is increasingly the norm, according
to the report, which said consumption of products to control weight and
ease anxiety are soaring.

He said widespread "ask-your-doctor" advertising is being used to market
prescription drugs for allergies, hyperactivity and fungi as cheerfully as
over-the-counter antacids, in violation of international conventions.

Americans increasingly consume image-enhancing and performance-boosting
drugs, the INCB found. Chief among these, Mr. Okun said, are anorectics for
slimming, steroids for muscle-building, Ritalin for hyperactivity, and
Viagra for sexual performance.

He said the average American consumes 10 times as much of these drugs as
the typical Western European.

"We have what may be called, without exaggeration, a pill-popping culture,"
he said.