Black market WLIs

[bridgetreilly]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2pvl56l72o

Would you support a move that said they can only be prescribed in-person, not online? I’m not sure how we can stop idiots buying things completely off license from non-medical professionals, but at least if online pharmacy prescriptions were stopped, there would be fewer underweight people getting them.

This is nothing to do with online prescriptions, this woman bought the medication from a friend, she didn’t get it prescribed to her via an online pharmacy. I don’t see how making people have an in person appointment would stop them passing the medication on like this?

Do you want all online prescriptions stopped for all medications or just this one type?

This woman had an eating disorder. She already went outside of the law to obtain the WLI so I can't imagine that a ban on online ordering would have stopped her. Surely she'd have just got a qualifying friend to do it for her?

Buying in person isn't going to stop people from buying black market drugs, though, is it? If that worked, no one would be buying pain killers or valium or a million other drugs from illegal dealers and sellers online.

The legit online pharmacies are red hot on making sure they are prescribing within the regulations so it wouldn’t make a difference, except maybe to drive more people to black market, potentially very unsafe products

This is not a story about WLIs, this is about criminals exploiting foolish and vulnerable people.

WLIs are acting as clickbait in the headline. It could easily be “Criminals kill and injure women with fake prescription drugs”.

No.

It would prevent some people who need WLIs from being able to access them, as any barriers do, and the black market won't stop existing as people will just bring them in from abroad.

I don't share your confidence that it'd mean fewer underweight people getting them. Anyone who buys whilst they fit prescription criteria but sells them on could also still do that anyway.

No because I don’t think it an effective solution to the problem you describe

No. How would it stop someone buying them from unauthorised sources?

Unfortunately EDs are the most fatal MH disorders. You don’t change an entire system that works and is probably preventing 1000s of premature deaths, to stop a few tragic deaths that wouldn’t be prevented anyway.

You’re banging a nail in with a sausage.

I think there should be either an in person consultation or at a bare minimum a video conference call. Lots of people on the site are bragging how they got wli’s with bmi’s under 25 from legitimate companies by lying about their height or weight. I’d personally like for GP’s to be allowed to run private weight loss consults on a Saturday, perhaps run by nurse practitioners, and then you get the prescription fulfilled by whoever you choose, ideally at least every 6 months you would need to return. I don’t think the nhs should pay but using the empty facilities on a weekend and allowing staff to earn overtime seems a good way forward

Unintended consequences. The staff earn on the weekend but have to take days in the week. They now earn enough privately that they can go part time. They have far fewer appointments to give out. Trying to get in to your GP gets more and more impossible.

Video calls are fair enough.

People have a lot of bright ideas, but none of them get round the fact that WLIs, easy foreign travel and the Internet all exist. Nor that we don't have the HCPs to watch people who are legitimately prescribed inject themselves with it, or not without them doing it instead of other things we need them to do anyway. As @MrsTerryPratchett points out.

Those factors in combination are what makes WLIs available to people who don't qualify. None of them are going away any time soon and they're not affected by changing the systems for people who qualify. Then obviously there's the fakes.

I got mine through an online pharmacy but would have been happy to have in person appointments.

I'd no more buy heroin off the street than WLIs. Idiots the lot of them. And it pisses me off that a genuinely life changing medication is demonised because there are some people who do things like this and instead of the message being "don't buy drugs off the street" it becomes "WLI nearly killed me".

What happened here had nothing to do with online consultations.

I think online prescribing is great in general. It does include some drugs that can be dangerous (e.g. fungal nail treatment which requires regular liver tests) if people lie to get them. But the woman in the article wasn’t prescribed anything online. I think it would be more valuable to talk about the risks of buying drugs from random people, which is what the article is doing. To be honest, I think having to go to a GP can be a barrier for getting help with things like ED, so I think it should be easier to self refer online for that too

That’s illogical. How would prescribing in person stop black market drugs. Prescribing on line or in person is the legal version. The black market will continue regardless. In fact if you forced in person, it would likely increase the black market as people have busy lives or don’t wish that level of intrusion.

Op did you not read the article. It’s illegal drugs people are obtaining and the bbc is saying it’s because it’s so hard to get the legit stuff, due to cost and the nhs not prescribing. They are advocating making it easier not harder to get the legit drugs.

You are confusing two things here.

Scenario 1 - person goes to an online pharmacy to get weight loss injections, or HRT or whatever because it's easier than going to the GP or because they can get privately what the NHS or their GP won't prescribe. They meet the criteria. These drugs are not illegal. They are approved and the pharmacies are regulated. Many have processes in place to ask you to verify your weight, and will ask for permission to inform your GP. I have recently been through this with an online pharmacy for both HRT and Wegovy. This is not "black market".

Scenario 2 - person buys injections or drugs from their mate, or a bloke down the gym, or from TikTok. They have no idea what they are buying, except it's cheap. These places don't care about making sure it's clinically appropriate, or telling your GP. That sort of sourcing is black market and putting more barriers in place on legitimate businesses will do nothing to stop the black market.

You're not wrong @Safarisagoody - but the title isn't "make WLI easier to get legitimately because black-market drugs could be anything", the title is "I nearly died after buying skinny jab from friend of friend". The way things go, is that you see a headline on your phone and don't necessarily read the article - and for a particular type of person, it then informs their world view that WLIs are dangerous.

Edit: not to mention, the woman in the article is a size 8 with an eating disorder!

It’s odd though, to start a thread on an article you didn’t read and tk think making it harder to get legitimate drugs will make black market drugs reduce. It’s as illogical as it gets.

1. I’m not anti-WLIs. I have been taking them for a year.
2. I did read the article and, as I say clearly in my OP, I know this wouldn’t solve the problem of black-market drugs from non-authorised prescribers.
3. There is, however, a problem indicated in the article, which is that everyone thinks they ought to be able to get WLIs, whatever their health and weight. If people aren’t stupid enough to go to the black-market, they will still lie to get them online.
4. Even the actual drugs are not without potential problems, especially for those who are not significantly overweight.

I would suggest that having to have an in-person appointment with a medical professionals might help the kind of thinking that treats them as no more than a self-prescribed supplement they can make informed decisions about without any real medical input.

It is different from a lot of other medications, precisely because there is such a demand for it from people who do not have a clinical need for it. I don’t see anyone being tempted to fake diabetes in order to get metformin, or fake asthma to get an inhaler. But people regularly fake their weight to get WLIs. That’s why I would like to see them having more regulation around their prescription, so that there is a clearer understanding in the general population that these are proper medical drugs, not to be messed around with.

But people do fake back pain to get painkillers or anxiety to get benzodiazepines. The kind of people who will go down the illegal route don’t care if something is a “proper medical drug” or not; they want it so they’ll do what they have to to get it.

Of course not. I am not responsible for idiots buying medicines on the black market. They take their chances as far as I'm concerned. I also have no idea how in-person appointments would stop them.

Definitely not. In reality, the online pharmacy I use to buy mine knows far more about wli than my GP. They are very diligent with checks. As were the previous pharmacy I used.
My local pharmacy do offer this service at twice the price I'm paying. The wli are already expensive, this would just price more people out of the market. And would have no effect whatsoever on the situation in that article.

That’s why I would like to see them having more regulation around their prescription, so that there is a clearer understanding in the general population that these are proper medical drugs, not to be messed around with.

You've not explained how this greater regulation would achieve that.