Steven Kovacs just wanted to concentrate on school, said his mother.
Classmates told him he should take Adderall to help him focus and Xanax to bring him down off the buzz. He regularly started popping both pills, which he ordered from illegal online pharmacies. He became addicted and died of an overdose at 22, according to his mother, Joni Kovacs-Howe of Jericho, Long Island.
“He got so caught up in the spiraling of this stuff,” said Kovacs-Howe. “It’s an epidemic.”
Yesterday, New York Sen. Charles Schumer called for a crackdown on these pharmacies, which he said sell pills with just one click of a mouse — no doctor’s signature needed.
Schumer called on the United States Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Agency to shut down the sites. He also wants credit-card companies to block payments to any of the websites.
Kovacs initially got a prescription for Adderall and Xanax from a doctor near his Tennessee college, his mother said. But back in New York, after graduating with honors, his Long Island family doctor refused to prescribe the drugs, she said.
So he ordered them online, which sent bulk shipments.
“I don’t want anyone to die from these stupid drugs,” Kovacs-Howe said.
