The highly anticipated weight-loss drug Acomplia (rimonabant) has been available for purchase by prescription in Britain since June 28, 2006, and as of May 2007, it was available in 11 European countries as well as Argentina, Mexico and Brazil.

It is not, at this point, on the market in the United States -- and if Zimulti (the name it would be marketed under) is approved for sale in the U.S., it is not expected to be available in American pharmacies until late 2007. Acomplia also has not been approved for sale in Canada.

People seeking to buy Acomplia can presently do so in one of three ways.

1. You can go to a doctor in a country where the sale of Acomplia has been approved (ie, the U.K.), and if the doctor agrees that you would benefit from taking Acomplia, the doctor will write out a prescription. You would then take the prescription to a pharmacy, and purchase the diet drug.

2. You can contact an online pharmacy in a country where the sale of Acomplia has been approved (ie, the U.K.) Some of these are already advertising on the internet. Typically, you will be asked to fill out a brief medical questionnaire for review by a doctor who will then decide whether to issue a prescription.

If you reside in the country where the pharmacy is located, the drug will be expressed to you and typically will reach you in a couple of days.

If you reside in a country where the drug has not been approved (ie, the U.S.), the online pharmacy will mail you the drug -- typically in an unmarked package -- in an effort to prevent its interception by customs. The drug typically will reach you in ten days to two weeks.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration takes the position that it is illegal for a foreign pharmacy to ship drugs not approved by the FDA into the United States. Other countries may have similar laws. In practice, very few shipments are intercepted -- and some online pharmacies send another package in the rare instances that this occurs.

3. You can contact an online pharmacy in a country where the sale of Acomplia has NOT been approved (ie, Canada). Some of these also are advertising on the internet. While the procedure for ordering the drug is similar to ordering from a country where Acomplia is legally for sale, we have no idea how third-country pharmacies (ie, Canadian pharmacies) are filling these orders.

The European Commission publicly issued a warning to consumers on March 27, 2006 -- when Sanofi was still not authorized to sell Acomplia anywhere -- that fake versions of the drug already were being sold over the internet.

"Patients who buy unlicensed and counterfeit or illicit copies of rimonabant may be putting their health at risk," the European Commission said.

The Acomplia Report offers no endorsement of any online pharmacies, and encourages anyone thinking of buying Acomplia from an ad they see on this site to first read this consumer alert.

When Acomplia first came on the market, as a service to our readers we attempted to share both positive and negative feedback from fellow readers about sellers of Acomplia.

There now are so many sources of Acomplia, and we receive so many conflicting reports (including some, we fear, from proxies of the seller), that we have decided to end our efforts to sort out the good merchants from the bad. However, one advertiser -- listed below -- has over the past nine months received far more positive feedback than any others.

Beyond worries about counterfeit drugs, many doctors are concerned that as Acomplia becomes more widely available, it will be pedaled by unscrupulous internet retailers in the same manner as Viagra.

Some analysts believe that for every legal prescription of Viagra, another 20 are sold over the Internet.

Given the growth in recent years in eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia, doctors worry that readily accessible Acomplia via the internet could have serious health consequences.