It sounds promising: You boot up your computer, call up a prescription drug Web site, type in your name, health insurer, credit card number and address, and ask your doctor to call or fax in your prescription. Within a day or so, your medication arrives by mail, UPS or FedEx. No driving to the drugstore. No parking. No waiting in line. A month ago, the first major Internet pharmacy, , went online
Soma.com. It fills orders through a distribution center in Ohio. By the end of March, PlanetRx in Tennessee and Drugstore.com in Texas are expected to be up and running. The goal is to make it easier to use an online pharmacy than a mail-order service, says A. Stergachis, director of pharmacy services at Drugstore.com. True, you have to send personal information into cyberspace, but there is supposed to be some confidentiality. PlanetRx, for instance, says privacy will be assured with "the highest level" of encryption, according to S. Schear, a founder and vice president of business development. And if all goes according to plan, online pharmacies will fill prescriptions just as ethically as your local drugstore. At Soma.com, your doctor (not you) must call or fax in the prescription. The pharmacists are required to call the doctor to verify that he is legit and the prescription correct. In theory, virtual pharmacies also will be duly licensed in the states from which they distribute drugs and will be licensed or registered in each individual state, as well. In reality, they are springing up in regulatory limbo.