Internet Pharmacies: Canada's Transnational Organized Crime
Health Law in Canada 34(4):93-120, August 2014
28 Pages Posted: 18 Mar 2016
Date Written: August 1, 2014
Abstract
Advertising or selling foreign-sourced medicines that are not approved by Health Canada is a criminal act in Canada. Yet, in the last decade, unscrupulous “Internet pharmacies” — some of which are just call centers and not truly pharmacies at all — located on Canadian soil have built a wildly successful industry on that criminal transaction, pitching unapproved medicines from developing countries such as India to patients and doctors in the United States. While the United States has, at times, prosecuted the Canadians responsible for this criminal cross-border trade — dealing in unapproved medicines violates American law too — no one has been prosecuted in Canada.
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