Results of the first study to establish a link between Twitter and illegal online pharmacies published in JMIR

A new study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR) found that illegal online pharmacies are using the social media platform, Twitter, to promote prescription drug abuse of controlled substances. While the study only looked at a two-week period of Tweets, it found that in that time over 45,000 tweets were promoting drug abuse. They also found that 76 percent of the tweets included a link to an online marketing affiliate selling the controlled substance Valium, which is a commonly abused prescription tranquilizer. The study was supported by ASOP Global.