Trash On The Internet Essay, Research Paper

With the increase of on-line crimes and fraud, stricter laws must be placed on the sale of such problematic items as guns, prescription drugs, and human blood and organs over the Internet. The selling of these and other items has created many problems in recent months. Most of these items are auctioned online through popular sites such as e-bay. This is a somewhat complicated issue due to the fact that they are many conflicting opinions. In addition, the laws for and against the marketing of these products online are very uncertain. There are many activists and liberals in favor of selling organs and blood online in order to save lives. Many gun advocates such as the NRA are greatly in favor of the retailing of guns over the Internet. The sale of guns online will be a rather tricky issue when dealing with the revision of current gun laws. Online prescription sales have already proven themselves dangerous and in several cases, lethal.

The online firearm market has taken of within the last couple of years. There are already many websites offing guns, ammunition, and supplies for purchase. Unless legal action is taken against this, obtaining a firearm will become easier than ever. Right now, it’s mostly just hunting advocates’ websites that sell guns, but sooner or later, corruption will begin, as always it does. These websites proclaim legitimacy- most are legitimate, though some are not. Most offer guns only to people who have gun permits or licenses and ship through NRA approved companies. Be this all true, the laws surrounding the on-line gun market are not clearly defined but rather hardly existent. Despite the NRA’s views, many people of various activist groups are straightforward in saying that strict laws need to be made to stop this marketing of firearms. As it is, guns are easy enough to acquire at gun shows. Selling guns online only simplifies this. It will be interesting to see what comes of this as stricter laws are placed on guns.

Selling prescription drugs online has also become extremely popular within a short period of time. It is so popular in fact; the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy has just set up a new board that certifies online pharmacies and calls them Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites. To date, there are only four such sites. They are: CVS.com, Drugstore.com, MerckMedco.com, and PlanetRx.com. This is not to say that no other websites are safe, just that the Food and Drug Administration does not accept them. People are advised to buy only from the four acceptable websites. One problem with online pharmacies is that there are only four approved ones. Any others may be potentially dangerous. These other websites, though they may be completely legal, and they may be only selling prescription drugs, might not be safe. They don’t carry your medical information- only your physician does. Most prescription drugs have precautions and drug interactions making them unsafe for some people. A simple trip to the doctor’s office may take the risk out of these websites. This view is easily argued by people with little time on their hands to go to the pharmacist or the doctor’s office. They allow people to just fill out a simple form online to order all their prescriptions. For the time being, making the short trip to your pharmacist may be the safest way to go.

Another item that goes along with prescription drugs is the sale of blood and human organs online. Recently, there have been several sales and auctions of organs online. One sale in particular, was recently terminated by Yahoo! through which the sale was being made. A man attempted to auction of one of his kidneys. The bidding reached $500,000 when it was called off. Selling organs is, and has been illegal since 1984. Many people are against the federal law that bans the sale of human organs. One argument is “blood can be sold, so why can’t kidneys (lungs, eyes…)?” Though this argument may not seem truly relavant, it does raise the issue of organ sales on-line or otherwise. Why shouldn’t this be legalized when it could possibly save lives? The government offers a simple answer- fraud. There are clearly many criminals in the online world. If these organ sales were legally established, there would be many people who would attempt to deceive and swindle potential buyers.

Another thing being sold, or rather rented, online are prostitutes and call girls. This is obviously illegal, but the market is growing. Again, there are very few clear laws defining prostitution and the net. Laws against pornography have been strictly enforced over the last couple years; however, the laws regarding prostitutes- male and female, many minors- have not. The Internet simplifies the life of a call girl, or boy, by eliminating the middleman, so to speak. These young people are able to make as much money as they want, and keep every cent. This is a difficult issue to tackle because the Internet is such a vast place, especially the Internet underground. These prostitutes are hard to track, thus making law enforcement much harder than finding them on the streets. As in all the other cases mentioned, stricter laws must be created and enforced. Online prostitution must be stopped.

In all cases of online sales: guns, drugs, organs, blood, and prostitutes; laws must be set. By creating laws, many people will be protected from the crime and trash that lurks on the Internet. Though easily debated issues, they are all issues, which need foundation and grounding. People can fall victim to online crime easily in any of these situations, be it mentally, physically, or emotionally. Online crime has to stop. Maybe increased government participation and laws won’t bring it to a screeching halt, but they will slow its progress.