LANSING – Prescription drugs are just a mouse click away.

Online pharmacies will ship prescription drugs to credit card-holding Web surfers without a prescription after they complete a short questionnaire.

The pharmacy then creates a prescription, sends it to a physician to sign and soon the drugs are mailed to the customer, said Melanie Brim, director of the Bureau of Health Professions in the Department of Community Health.

“We’ve tried it a couple times internally,” Brim said of the department’s ongoing investigation. “It’s very easy if you have access to a credit card.”

The drugs could arrive as soon as two to three days after the order is placed, depending on the shipping method, Brim said.

The ease of ordering prescriptions online is a fairly recent phenomenon. In 2005, the Legislature authorized pharmacies to mail prescriptions.

Since then, a handful of “rogue pharmacies” have cropped up, sending prescription drugs through the mail without proof of a valid doctor-patient relationship, Brim said.

Regulating the online sale of prescription drugs in Michigan is tough because the state has no regulations that speak specifically to the sale of drugs on the Internet, she said.

The crucial element in identifying a rogue pharmacy is the lack of a doctor-patient relationship, Brim said.

“These doctors have never seen the patient,” Brim said. “They just have the answers to the questionnaire. There’s no way of knowing whether or not that’s truthful.”

The state can investigate only pharmacists, pharmacies and physicians licensed by the state.

“The best we can do is turn them over to the local prosecutor,” Brim said.

Brim said that most rogue pharmacies operate outside the country.

“That’s a major concern, that we have no idea where the drugs are coming from,” Brim said. “Other countries don’t have the same standards as the Food and Drug Administration.

“The drug could be coming from anywhere in the world. It could be manufactured at half strength - we don’t know the integrity of the chemical composition,” she said.

The department has found a few pharmacies operating in Michigan, mostly based in the southeast side, which has the highest concentration of pharmacies in the state. Brim said that most of those pharmacists didn’t initially think they were doing anything wrong and immediately shut down.

As for the Michigan-licensed doctors who write such prescriptions, the state can open an investigation and potentially discipline them.

There is no claim that all prescription-filling Web sites aren’t legit, said Greg Baran, director of governmental affairs for the Michigan Pharmacists Association.

“The National Association of the Boards of Pharmacy does have a mechanism to validate Internet pharmacies,” Baran said, referring to the organization’s Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Site credential.

There are between eight and 10 approved online pharmacies in Michigan, most associated with chain pharmacies like Wal-Mart and CVS. The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy’s Web site lists 15 online pharmacies, representing more than 12,000 pharmacies nationwide, as Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites.

Baran said he hasn’t heard of any Michigan’s pharmacists selling drugs online without a prescription.

“I know they’ve been asked, and they are skeptical,” Baran said.

One danger of online pharmacies is the potential of unqualified physicians signing prescriptions.

“There is concern about the validity of the prescriptions, Baran said. “Is the prescriber who they say they are?”

Another danger is the potentially harmful mixing of medications, Baran said. If the doctor signing the prescription has never met the patient, the patient won’t know if the drugs he or she is ordering will conflict with other medications or conditions.

The ease of obtaining drugs from online pharmacies also poses a threat to children, Brim said.

“It becomes very easy for youth to get drugs if they have access to a credit card,” Brim said.

Since there isn’t much legal action the state can take, Brim said the most important measure to avoiding rogue pharmacies is educating the public about them.

“If a Web site is advertising that you can get these medications without a prescription, that should raise a few red flags,” Brim said.

The state could punish patrons of rogue pharmacies, the owners of such Web sites and doctors signing the prescriptions if a bill in the House passes.

The proposal by Rep. Michael Sak, D-Grand Rapids, would allow the prosecution of those involved with controlled, addictive or potentially harmful substances like vicodin, valium and oxycotin.

The National Association of the Boards of Pharmacy, meanwhile, announced that it would implement a drug distributor information program later this spring. The program would list online pharmacies, identify Internet sites that legitimately sell prescriptions for drugs and flag sites that sell and distribute medicines illegally.