Buying medicine abroad & customs

carolinej

I can buy online a sleeping pill (unisom) that can be bought as an over the counter medicine in pharmacies in the US ie. without a prescription. It cannot be bought in Ireland at all. If I buy it online (it is sold by reputable companies like amazon.com, not dodgy site's), will customs seize it as illegal as it is not available in Ireland because it will be on the customs forms as a medicine. Everything has to be above board!!! any knowledge on this appreciated.

themole

afaik they can withhold any medication which is not approved here. Better off to ring customs to be sure.

Our man in Havana

Go to nothern ireland and buy over the counter.

jor el

As far as I know, customs will stop any pharmaceutical import that you don't have a prescription for. There was a piece on cheap import medicine bought on the Internet a while ago on a radio show, Sunday Supplement or The Last Word or something like that, can't remember now, and the researcher tried doing something like this but got a letter from customs looking for prescription and threatening him with legal action if he didn't have one. He contacted them to inform that it was a journalism piece and they were OK with it, but confiscated the medicine.

I wouldn't risk it TBH.

MontgomeryClift

The pharmacy lobby in Ireland has used the Irish customs to start stopping medication from abroad because people have been buying the very same stuff from abroad for 1/4 of the price they charge here.

angeldelight

It's not money issues... it's safety. Just because something is available OTC in another country doesn't mean that it's safe to take it without any kind of intervention from any sort of healthcare professionals.

OP... it's only an antihistamine, is it worth the hassle??

Irishsnake

In my humble opinion .....

you will have no problems as long as the cost is under 30 or 40 euro whereby it would incur taxes
Ive bought lots of stuff and never had a problem