Prescription drug abuse has skyrocketed, and experts point to "rogue" online pharmacies. CNN's Deborah Feyerick reports.

Ryan Haight was 18 years old when he bought two powerful drugs, Vicodin and Morphine. He never saw a doctor or even a pharmacist. His mother says it happened in secret online. She was the one who found Ryan dead of an overdose.

"I remember that moment, thinking, oh, my god. oh, my god. why did he take these? How did he get these? "

Ryan, an athlete and honor student from Southern California, got the drugs illegally through the Internet from a seller in Texas. It's like somebody entered your house, but you don't know they are there.

One million, four hundred and ten thousand buy Oxycontin without a prescription. Joseph Califano, an expert on addiction and drug abuse has watched the number of advertisers for rogue online pharmacies skyrocket.

They don't care who you are, they just want you to buy Oxycontin without a prescription.

The pharmacies or cyber doctors know little or nothing about their customers' medical history, yet still put millions of pills into the hands of people with no prescriptions.

You can get Oxycontin, you can get Vicodin, you can get Ritalin, you can get Adderall, you can get Xanax, you can get Valium, very easily. It's like a candy. The Internet has become a candy store for 12 to 18 year-old kids.

Experts say it's hard to put a figure on the actual number of teens buying drugs online. But with an estimated 6 million Americans overall abusing prescription medications, the drug enforcement agency has stepped up efforts to shut down more than 100 of these rogue pharmacies, a daunting task.

They operate in cyber space, they operate with anonymity, and it takes enormous amount of time to identify these, these pharmacies to find out the individuals that are operating the pharmacies, what country they happen to be operating in, how they are receiving their payment.

And because they operate in places like India, China, Mexico Canada, even when they are found, it's easy for them to shut down and reappear under a new name, making it almost impossible for parents, like Ryan's mum to protect their children.

The drug dealer came into our house, it's a total invasion into our home. And that's what is so frightening.

Deborah Feyerick, CNN New York

WORDS IN THE NEWS

1. Vicodin

Vicodin is a trademarked brand of narcotic analgesics (painkillers) containing hydrocodone and paracetamol (acetaminophen). It is usually found in tablet form with either the names "Vicodin", "Vicodin ES", or "Vicodin HP" imprinted on one side.

2. Morphine : n-uncount

Morphine is a drug used to relieve pain.

3. OxyContin : 复方羟氢可待因

Oxycodone is an opioid analgesic medication synthesized from thebaine. It was developed in 1916 in Germany and introduced to the pharmaceutical market as Eukodal (also spelled Eucodal) and Dinarkon. Its chemical name is derived from codeine - the chemical structures are very similar, differing only in that the hydroxyl group of codeine has been oxidized to a carbonyl group (as in ketones), hence the "-one" suffix, the 7,8-dihydro-feature (codeine has a double-bond between those two carbons), and the hydroxyl group at carbon 14 (codeine has just a hydrogen in its place), hence "oxy"codone.

4. rogue : adj

A rogue element is someone or something that behaves differently from others of its kind, often causing damage.