Current Law

In the United States, the Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act of 2008 expressly prohibits the sale and purchase of controlled substances on the Internet. Exemptions to this provision are (1) if the practitioner has conducted a prior in-person medical evaluation of the patient or (2) if the patient has had a qualified “telemedicine” encounter.

Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA230) grants liability immunity to any provider of "interactive computer service" for user-generated content. Tech firms like Facebook and Google have used CDA230 in court to claim immunity for hosting illegal drug content.