In order to contribute to further discussion of internet drug sales, we surveyed 3468 Pharmacy websites over the Internet in Japan. There were 279 sites (8.0%) having mail-order sale via the Internet. Almost all of them were selling health foods 213 (76.3%), then medicines 156 (55.9%), cosmetics 125 (44.8%) and elderly care products 37 (13.3%). Inside the medicines, there were 121 (77.6%) selling “Over The Counter” (OTC) drugs. We classified the OTC drugs by their mechanism of action; the most numerous were nutrients tonics and alteratives (85.1%), dermatological ointments (38.8%), digestive aids (38.0%), urological, reproductive, proctological (34.7%), gynecological medicines (33.1%) and cold medicines and related drugs (21.5%). We found a lot of
sites vending medicines not allowed to sell over the internet, including 39 websites selling Group 1 classified OTC drugs prohibited to sell under the new legislation approved on 2007. This indicates the necessity of new methods to control this situation.

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