FDA Asks Amazon, Ebay, Walmart, To Restrict Anti Diarrheal Meds Used By Opioid Addicts

washington examiner
Kimberly Leonard | Mar 1, 2018, 7:12 PM

The Food and Drug Administration sent a letter to online retail giants Thursday asking them to limit the sale of an over-the-counter, anti-diarrheal medicine that drug users are taking to mimic a euphoric high from opioids.

In a letter to Amazon, Ebay, Walmart, and Jet, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb noted that a growing number of people are taking the drug loperamide in high doses, which can result in serious heart problems or death.

The FDA has become aware that people are taking these high amounts of the drug, a caplet often known by its brand-name Imodium A-D, as an alternative to an opioid, both to manage symptoms of withdrawal and to get high. Imodium is often known in drug circles as the "poor man's methadone." Methadone is often prescribed by doctors to treat people with addictions to heroin or prescription painkillers.

Drug users are able to obtain large quantities of loperamide online. Gottlieb noted in his letter that retailers were selling it in bundled amounts that could result in customers obtaining 1,200 tablets in a single purchase.

Gottlieb asked the retailers to voluntarily cease selling more than one package at a time and to include warning labels on their websites.

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