ABSTRACT
In recent years, public health officials have increasingly been concerned about the growing online availability and use of illicit—and sometimes hazardous—lifestyle medicines that can be easily purchased without an official medical prescription or medical oversight. Consumers of these illicit lifestyle medicines may be deceived patients who have unwittingly purchased them through illegal or fake online pharmacies; they can also be consumers trying to proactively improve their lifestyle and human attributes. In order to understand how to inform people who order online illicit lifestyle medicines without medical oversight, it is important to unravel their various motivations and different perspectives on risks. Yet, theoretical and in-depth empirical insights on the users of illicit lifestyle medicines have so far been quite scarce. This chapter offers an analysis into the motives, perceptions, and risk management of consumers of online purchased lifestyle medicines for erectile dysfunction and weight loss. It relies on interviews with consumers of illicit medicines in the Netherlands, an analysis of online discussion platforms, and findings from a large-scale survey study of consumers’ perceptions on purchasing medicines online.
