AUGUSTA – Governor John Baldacci has written fellow governors and Attorney General Steven Rowe has contacted his counterparts in other states to urge support of federal changes that would allow the import of lower-priced drugs from other countries, particularly Canada.

“Our Medicaid budget is in excess of two to three hundred million dollars in terms of prescription drugs,” Baldacci said last week. “To be able to save 10, 20 or 30 percent, I mean you are talking about savings of tens of millions of dollars for the state.”

The governor said he has been getting good support from other governors across the country in response to a letter he sent urging support of drug importation legislation before Congress.

“Despite charges that implementing a reimportation system would put Americans at an increased safety risk,” Baldacci wrote, “we have not heard instances in which an American consumer has been harmed by medicine received from Canada.”

Rowe said last week he has urged other attorneys general to lobby their congressional delegations to support proposals that would ease import restrictions.

“I am not talking about carte blanche importing any drug from anywhere,” he said. “I am supporting allowing drugs that have been FDA [Food and Drug Administration] approved and are safe to use.”

Rowe points out that many of the most commonly prescribed drugs are made in one of the hundreds of foreign manufacturing plants that the FDA already inspects. For example, Lipitor, a cholesterol-lowering drug, is made in Ireland. The “purple pill” of television ad fame, Nexium, is manufactured in Sweden.

“It just doesn’t make sense to say they are not safe just because they go to Canada first before coming in to the United States,” Rowe said.

Trish Riley, the key health policy adviser to Baldacci, said imported drugs can cost 50 percent to 75 percent less than in the United States because the Canadian and European governments set the prices. She said prescription drug costs, along with hospital care, are the two largest components of Maine’s health care budget.

“Drug costs are the biggest and fastest growing part of health care,” she said. “Hospitals and prescription drugs are neck and neck as to what drives health care costs, and clearly we have got to send a message that we need relief.”

Baldacci and Rowe have been urging their counterparts in other states to support measures drafted by a bipartisan group of lawmakers. The group has been pushing for drug importation changes in the pending Medicare prescription drug bill, as well as separate legislation that would accomplish the same goal should efforts to include the provision in the Medicare measure fail.

Sen. Olympia Snowe is one of the leaders of that dual effort. She said last week the issue is so important it needs to be addressed through whatever legislative maneuver can garner enough votes.

“We’re in a situation, in my home state as well as in yours, where seniors are desperate to have affordable prescription drugs,” she told Senate colleagues last month. “Congress needs to act and it needs to act now.”

Last June, the Senate voted 62-28 for one version of legislation allowing drug imports; in July, the House approved a similar measure 243-186. The legislation would allow imports of FDA-approved drugs from plants in Canada and 25 other nations where FDA inspectors already inspect facilities to assure drug quality.

“It becomes more apparent every day that the real safety threat to American consumers is that they simply cannot afford their increasingly expensive life-saving medications,” Baldacci wrote to other governors.

But, the FDA is opposing the legislation, warning that drugs reimported from another country may not be safe. FDA Commissioner Mark McClellan warned in a recent speech that while he understands the frustration of lawmakers and state officials, there is danger in circumventing the federal regulatory process.

“State and local governments and private groups cannot provide reliable safety assurances when they purchase drugs from foreign sources,” he said. “We’re against large new gaps in the nation’s ability to protect its citizens from potentially unsafe drugs, at a time when the threats to the safety of our drug supply are greater than ever.”

McClellan said the FDA is stretched thin already in its efforts to monitor drug sales with in the United States, and simply does not have the resources to undertake the considerable job of overseeing drug imports.

Snowe said she cannot believe the FDA cannot find a way to certify the safety of prescription medications coming from other countries and enforce existing laws. Rowe agreed.

“Government does have the responsibility to do its best to protect its citizens,” he said. “But I believe there is a way to set up certain conditions of the importation of drugs, particularly from Canada, that will protect our citizens.”

The savings over the next decade gained from passage of drug importation legislation has been estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to be $40 billion. That includes savings of $4.5 billion just for the federal government.