International Law

Illegal Drug Sales & A Touch of Cynicism

By Stan

I recently wrote about a crackdown by the drug authorities on illegal online drug sales (really, it’s true) and used the occasion to suggest a disconnect between the SFDA and the MII, the latter being responsible for regulating the Internet. Interagency cooperation over here is problematic in most cases.

Based on news reports, it appeared as though the SFDA was being aggressive, but that it was unclear how swiftly MII would move and to what extent they were cooperating with the drug regulators. Apparently I was a little hasty in coming to a negative conclusion:

The State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) publicized a list of 25 websites found in its latest inspection. The sites either sold counterfeit drugs or publicized illicit content, such as false, exaggerated or misleading information regarding cures to various ailments.

All the cases for the sites, most disguised under the names of certain hospitals or medical institutions, were transferred to the former Ministry of Information Industry for punishment, the administration said. (Xinhua)

The good news here is that we see coordination between the two agencies. The SFDA initiated the actions and then MII followed through with their part with respect to the sites themselves. Not sure what the “punishment” will be, although if we are dealing with an administrative agency, most likely this will be a fine of some sort.

I can’t help but point out the downside here. We now have an example of an administrative agency working together with MII to take down web sites. This leads to a natural question: why can’t MII work the same way with other agencies to stop a lot of other online activities? Copyright infringement immediately comes to mind, not to mention sites that offer obvious counterfeit goods. If SFDA can do it, why doesn’t this happen more often?

Not to make light of this, but it reminds me of a recent bit on The Daily Show. One of the “correspondents”, John Oliver, was commenting on President Bush’s recent trip to Africa and was struck by Bush’s popularity in some countries. Jon Stewart, the host of the show, noted that in fact, Bush’s Africa policy, which has included a lot of foreign aid, had been quite good.

Oliver became quite agitated at this as he acknowledged that Bush’s Africa initiatives had been successful. But why was Bush doing good things? It did not make sense. Stewart suggested that perhaps Bush was just trying to make that part of the world a better place. This was Oliver’s response:

No! No! That makes it worse! Over the past seven excruciating years I?ve come to terms with the President being incompetent. The fact that we now know that he?s capable of doing good all along and has simply chosen not to, that really burns!

Full post as published by China Hearsay on March 31, 2008 (boomark / email).