The BBC reported March 2 that the INCB's 2004 annual report warned of a growing and hard-to-control threat posed by Internet drug sales. The agency said that the Internet is becoming a major source of drugs for kids, and that legal suppliers are abetting illegal sales by providing their products to unlicensed online pharmacies.

"The illicit trade over the Internet has been identified as one of the major sources for prescription medicines abused by children and adolescents in certain countries such as the United States," the INCB said. "Billions of [doses of] controlled substances -- some of them highly potent drugs such as oxycodone, equivalent to morphine, and fentanyl, which is many times stronger than morphine -- are being sold by unlicensed internet pharmacies."

The INCB called on governments to crack down on illicit Internet pharmacies worldwide.

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