TRACK MONEY FLOW TO STOP MOVEMENT OF ADDICTIVE DRUGS

The drug dealer of the future is sleek, efficient, sophisticated -
and WiFi enabled. As highlighted in a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee
hearing last week, the once-distinct worlds of drug dealing and the
Internet are merging, resulting in unprecedented access to potent
painkillers like Vicodin and Oxycontin for non-medical use. The fear
this situation generates knows no partisan limits: liberal Sen.
Dianne Feinstein and conservative Sen. Jeff Sessions are reaching
across the aisle to promote greater controls on Internet drug trafficking.

Addictive and potentially lethal medications are available without
prescription from over 2 million Web sites around the world,
according to studies conducted by the Treatment Research Institute at
the University of Pennsylvania. Many of them are based in countries
that impose few legal controls on pharmaceuticals. A no-prescription
pharmacy in Tajikistan or Tanzania - which might be little more than
a truck with a well-stocked medicine cabinet and a wireless-enabled
laptop computer - can sell painkillers to Americans with no fear of
local law enforcement.

This growing phenomenon may be fueling the rising tide of
prescription drug abuse among adolescents. The 2006 Monitoring the
Future survey by the University of Michigan found that 12th graders
are five times as likely to have used Oxycontin and 12 times as
likely to have used Vicodin as they are to have used heroin in the
past year. The average parent or teen probably considers abuse of
these drugs less dangerous than heroin, but in fact they are
pharmacologically quite similar, all being potent opiates with high
risk of addiction and overdose.

Tech-Savvy World

Most adolescents are more tech-savvy than their parents, and
understandably have less fear of ordering a drug on their home
computer or cell phone than they would of venturing out into the
street to find a dealer. Many a teenager is home alone when the mail
comes, and it only takes a few teens to supply a large number of
young people with Internet-purchased drugs.

What to do? Feinstein and Sessions should be commended for taking the
important first step of amending the Controlled Substances Act, which
was originally passed when Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were 15 years
old, to cover the Internet trade of abusable medications. The next
step is to develop strategies that limit Internet trade in dangerous
no-prescription drugs, while preserving the right of patients with
legitimate prescriptions to purchase needed medications online.

The Drug Enforcement Agency has pursued the traditional law
enforcement approach of arresting dealers and seizing drugs. This
works well for pharmacies physically based in the United States, but
most Web-based drug dealing originates in other countries. Even if we
were fortunate enough to put all domestic illegal Internet pharmacies
out of business, the traffic would simply shift entirely overseas at
the speed of a few mouse clicks. Traditional border control methods
likewise will have little impact: The Customs Service can't inspect
more than a fraction of the foreign mail that enters the country each day.

Key Difference

To succeed at suppressing this new form of drug dealing, we will have
to recognize a fundamental difference between street and Internet
drug deals. Tracking financial transactions on the street - for
example, the names and addresses of all the people who contributed to
the $5,000 in small bills found on an arrested drug dealer - is very
difficult for law enforcement. In contrast, on the Internet, even the
smallest financial transactions are electronic, creating a traceable record.

Law enforcement agents could pose as teenagers wanting to buy pain
killers without prescription over the Internet, much the same way
they currently catch online sexual predators. Once the phony
transaction had been processed, the information on the seller could
be immediately shared with the credit card company and its associated
bank. These entities, in turn, could cancel the ability of the seller
to do any further electronic transactions online. This involves some
cost for the credit card companies and banks, but it will benefit
them by getting them out of a dirty business.

Focusing policing on the financial transactions rather than the drugs
themselves may seem an unusual departure from traditional enforcement
approaches. But just as the Internet has demanded new ways of
thinking about every other area of life, it will also require new
ideas for combating dangerous drugs. Efforts to seize
Internet-purchased drugs at the border or in far-off nations will
have minimal effect, but we don't need those familiar tools to tackle
this problem. The best approach was well-summarized by one of the
witnesses at the Senate hearing, Dr. Thomas McLellan of the Treatment
Research Institute: Just follow the money.