You may have recently seen a news story about a Massachusetts teenager who ordered a barrel for his paintball gun and received a box of Viagra and porn instead. The story raised a lot of eyebrows, and a lot of questions. Obviously this was a mix-up, but what is a paintball company doing selling Viagra? And are online Viagra sales so unregulated that the drug could accidentally get into the hands of a 14 year old? While it sure made for some sensational headlines, most of the reports were completely misleading. To set the record straight, the teen did not in fact receive actual, pharmaceutical Viagra. It wasn't even generic Viagra. A photo of the contents of the parcel shows three boxes of a male enhancement formula - so-called herbal Viagra - as well as some erection-enhancing oil marketed under the same brand, some pheromone spray, and a DVD of some sort.
Apparently the paintball company wasn't directly responsible for the goof, either. As this story reports, the paintball business, like many online stores, uses a product fulfillment service - with a warehouse full of thousands of other products - to ship out their orders. The company that sells the male enhancement pills happens to use the same service, and a mailing label got put on the wrong box.
So why does this matter? Well, for one thing, the inaccurate reporting blurs the distinction between Viagra - a prescription drug with medical applications - and questionable "male enhancement" products. They're hardly interchangeable. Also, a story like this give an impression that online pharmacies, especially those that sell medications like Viagra, are sketchy and unregulated - to the point where they could dispense the drug to a teenager - and that a small sporting goods company or any other Joe Schmoe with an online business could have a sideline selling Viagra, packing and shipping it along with their other products. In reality, reputable online pharmacies selling genuine Viagra are well regulated, and when you order Viagra from one, you're ordering from a business that specializes dispensing pharmaceuticals. They may sell other drugs as well, but that's all they sell. Well, maybe pill splitters, too.
