Hi All,

A friend of mine ordered some hair-loss-treatment pills online. In Switzerland the pills are available by prescription only, not covered by insurance and much more expensive than online shop. When the pills arrived some letters were attached by Swissmedic indicating he may be fined.

Is online shopping for medicine illegal?! Are there any measures to be taken to avoid fines?

Thanks for your time.

http://www.swissmedic.ch/marktueberw...x.html?lang=en

How many erectile stimulants tablets may I import?

You are permitted to import a maximum of 20 individual doses (tables, capsules or gels)

Hope that helps your friend and his hair-loss problem

I'm sure some medicines are controlled.

Medicine is one of the things I would definitely not buy from the internet, you do not know what you are getting. Not to mention buying who knows what without proper medical advice.

off topic I know but do hair loss pills really work? have the worked for your friend?

And i agree, buying drugs online is seriously dodgy. Read many articles and seen a few reports lately about the counterfeit drugs industry and it's not nice

yeah I figure it was a bad idea ... but unfortunately I was the one who suggested it ... we are both new to the country, so it takes time to catchup with many many rules and regulations around!

ReGaine is the only medically proven one I think so far, this has been round for yonks. It can have some side effects and you've got stuff all chance of regaining hair if your an established pate-polisher like myself but if your just beginning to lose it from the crown (i.e. at the back, which is the important part in terms of hair loss) then it can help. Short of that a hair transplant. Note that neither of these approaches will give you a bigger willy though.

Im sure there are some new developments coming through with the current rapid pace of medical development though.

Actually these pills were developed agains benign prostate hyperplasia and one side effect found (non intended effect) was that patients started growing hair back...hence they do work but I am not sure about the percentage of success. My dad takes the pills and uses rogaine also, his hair did grow back just a bit but at least he is not losing any anymore..... And yes it was my dad, to anyone that knows me, knows I could even donate hair

I also would strongly discourage buying any medications online.

Unless you are absolutely sure or the supplier, at best you are likely to get counterfeit substitutes; at the worst rat poison or something equally nasty.

You will probably get your inbox full of spam for all manner of things

When a medicine is available by 'prescription only' in Switzerland, it is forbidden to obtain/import it through any other mean. Even if you go to a pharmacy and ask them to give it to you, they will not (unless you have a doctor's prescription) as such medicines may have side effect on some parts of the body(kidneys,liver etc.).

While receiving such medicines, you never know what exactly is the composition....basically you don't know whether its going to grow the hair back....or simply make the left ones vanish in a weeks time

You can't quote this excuse in the reply to the letter your friend received from Swissmedic...ignorance isn't any excuse for them.

I agree, many of the places selling medicines get their supplies from India and other third world countries, and the medicines are either placebos (simple glucose pills) or not at the appropriate dosage.

There's a laser "comb" you can get as well, which has shown benefits in clinical trials.

For women, I can understand being concerned about hairloss, but for men... no. The more I lose, the shorter I cut my hair. I know a guy who wears a bad toupee. It's got to look worse than being a slaphead like me.

I was discussing something similar with a friend the other day.

She was wondering whether she could get her UK Metformin prescriptions filled in the UK and posted to Switzerland by a family member.

Would the tablets be allowed through customs?

Have them posted to Germany (Weil-am-rein) - cut and paste from previous post of mine:

For those in and around Basel, you may be interested in a postal service provided by a company just over the border in Weil-am-Rein.

http://www.serviceadresse.com/

Basically, they give you a (full) postal address that can have signed parcels delivered (so it is a step up from a post box). It costs you between €2-8 to pick up stuff (depending on size). You can be notified by sms (costs) or email (free) when packages arrive for you.

It is just over the border in the EU, so easy to get to and means you can avoid paying taxes on stuff if you are not sure whether the authorities are going to get you. Obviously, you can't claim tax back in this situation, but for large second-hand purchases, or where you think you aren't going to get a fair deal, or indeed for postage charges for items purchased in Germany (e.g. ebay.de) and the EU, it is useful.

Have you or anyone you know used this service and are they an honest business?

Yes, yes and yes (well, I got my parcel without any problems).

My colleague (who recommended it to me) and her other half use it all the time without any problems.

Regarding metformin particularly - it's widely prescribed in Switzerland for diabetes and pretty cheap, so if your friend has Swiss insurance, it might not be worth the hassle to get it from the UK, or have it sent to Germany. Although there might be other uses, reasons to get it from the UK.

I take a prescription drug that I still get from the US, prescribed by a US doctor and sent to me from a US pharmacy, and paid for out of pocket. I have no trouble getting the medication from the US, it comes to me marked "for personal use." Of course, I have no idea how prescriptions, etc. work in the UK so I don't know if that's another option for your friend.

What an interesting site - so much stuff in Switzerland that I know not of.
If the stuff was actually delivered to your friend then it looks like he is in the clear - if the stuff is not OK then they send it back to sender & charge you.

Otherwise it looks like you only get fined if they think you are reselling the medicines; I suppose you just have to demonstrate your lack of hair; or whaever you lack

Ah, ok... so that's why when I get my thing from the US it's marked with a big "For Personal Use" on the package.

I was going to say the same thing, metformin is sooo cheap (because there are many manufacturing companies). Plus insurance will pay for it. Even if your friend has to pay10% it will be cheaper than buying abroad .
I take metformin too

The cost for either sending back to the sender or destroying the medicine is minimum 300fr....simply for handling the case. If the medicines are illegal, they wouldn't be allowed to reach the person addressed to....so no way anyone can resell them

If a medicine is prescribed by a doctor and is clearly written 'for personal use', it isn't a problem if you get them from abroad.